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Designing Stone Stairs for Patios

The design of your stairs can make or break the look of your stone patio. A well balanced patio design is key to a successful outcome of your efforts.

For a well balanced design you stairs landing should go across the patio door and any additional glass panels you may have. The number of stair steps also plays an important role in your overall design.

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Here is how a round stone stair typically looks like.

Landing, Above View

Stairs Above View Stairs, Above View

Stair Section

Should you prefer more, you can also design rectangular shaped stairs using the same principles further outlined in this article.

Limiting the landing to the width of the patio door only will result in an unbalanced design of your patio. You may want to consider this approach should you like to use less material for the stairs and have more room for the patio itself.

Small Landing

Here is how the small stairs will look like.

Small Stairs

In my case, I have selected an alternate solution featuring a large landing and cut-in stairs. As a result I got a fairly well balanced patio design with additional patio surface and plenty of light into my basement, through the nearby window.

Round Stairs

Adding planters and other ornamental and functional features such as balusters will definitely enhance the appearance of your stone stairs. So will increase the cost and the time spent on building your dream stairs.

Regarding the stairs steps, the depth of the step should be around two times its height and you should not have more than three steps on any flight of stairs. In my case, I have decided to build three stairs steps with heights of 7″ and depths of 15″.

Coming up with an appealing, well balanced and functional stone stairs design is key.

Here are some design alternatives, should the distance from the bottom of the patio door to the ground calls for more than three stair steps.

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