Another week gone already? Our apologies on not getting this week’s paver stones grill recipe posted on Wednesday, somehow the days got away without noticing they were gone. If your week has been half as busy as ours, you’re probably ready to spend some time just lolling about doing nothing important at all. There is no better place for relaxing and gathering peace of mind that your paving stones patio. Kicking back next to that roaring fire in the outdoor fireplace is one of our favorite spots, despite the chilly weather. Warmth from the fire makes rejuvenating quickly great with the music of the new waterfalls nearby.

Now what are you going to do about dinner?

Something delicious, but quick and simple to prepare and whip on the grill is most tempting. After a week that whizzed past so fast, Wednesday up and disappeared, no one is in the mood for cooking a 5 course meal. This is it! The perfect gourmet treat to toss on the paver stones grill and everyone from the kids on up is definitely going to thoroughly enjoy. Plan on grilling and that fire on the paving stones patio for Sunday, this weekend it’s going to rain Saturday.

Easy and taste balanced sides with this delightful entrée will lean toward accenting the oriental kick of perfectly seasoned meat and fruit skewers. Plan on serving steamed or stir-fried rice and generous helpings of fresh broccoli or asparagus all around. It’s going to be a bit chilly for dining on the paving stone patio by late afternoon, just grill it up and retire indoors to enjoy this fast and easy meal.

Mango Tango Chicken Kabobs ala Stone Patio Grill
Serves 4.

Meat
4 Chicken breasts (boneless)
6 bamboo skewers

Marinade Ingredients
1/3 cup Sesame oil
1/2 cup Honey
1/4 cup Dark molasses
1/4 cup Dry sherry
1 cup Soy sauce
1/4 cup Dark brown sugar
2-3 cloves Fresh garlic
2 teaspoon Fresh ginger root

Grilling Ingredients
1 Ripe Mango
1 cup Fresh Pineapple
2 tablespoons Sesame seeds
1/4 cup Hoisin sauce
Salt
Pepper

• Rinse your chicken breasts and cut into 2 inches cubes. Chop up the garlic and ginger for the marinade, then mix it with the rest of the marinade ingredients well. Pour half of the marinade off into a small sauce pan to reserve it for keeping your chicken moist while it’s on the paver stones grill.
• Add your cubed chicken to the marinade left in the bowl, cover with saran wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours. You might want to stir the meat a couple of times during this important flavoring/tenderizing phase to ensure all the meat is well coated with the delicious mixture.
• Be sure to soak your bamboo skewers in cold water for at least 30 minutes before you’re ready to cook. Dry wooden skewers will quickly burst into flames on your paver stones grill. Not a real desirable event!
• To thicken your grill basting sauce, place the saucepan on the stove and bring it to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer to finish the thickening process. Set your grill ready basting sauce aside.
• Peel the fresh pineapple and the mango. Cut into cubes and set aside til ready to put together grilling skewers..
• Preheat the paver stones grill to medium-high and coat the grill rack lightly with oil to keep your Stone Patio Gourmet masterpiece entrée from sticking to the rack.
• You’re ready to build the kabobs. Thread marinated chicken cubes alternated with the pineapple and mango chunks onto your skewers. Season lightly with salt and pepper.
• Reduce the paver stones grill heat to medium-low and get the loaded skewers onto the grill rack. Close the lid for cooking. Every 3-4 minutes baste the top and sides after turning them.
• It will only take 15 minutes to completely cook these delicious morsels on the flames of the paving stones patio grill. Pull them off the grill onto you serving platter and sprinkle with sesame seeds.
• The rest of your basting sauce can quickly be warmed in the microwave and served with the rest of your Stone Patio Gourmet meal.

Today’s swimming pool and pool deck design has taken a turn away from the sterility of nothing but pavement, tiles and water. Many homeowners are opting for more natural, softer settings for the backyard pool. Why have all the cold hard lines when you can have beautiful plants and natural rocks breaking up the pavers for pool decks? The latest thing in pool deck design is that they are an extension of the outdoor living room patio so adding gardens and planting areas along the water’s edge is perfectly understandable.

The tumbled pavers that have a variety of sizes in the blend are just right for this kind of landscaped swimming pool setting. Combining boulders with plants has been a favorite look in landscape design for many years. The hard smoother planes of rocks make the texture and colors of plant foliage more richly pronounced. By adding that lovely swimming pool blue-green element takes the effect to a higher level of beauty. Paving stones used in pool decks finish off such a design with a look that could have been there for many years.

The other new trend in swimming pools and pavers pool decks is that the square and expected kidney shape is being by passed for a more natural shape with unexpected turns and curves. Your pool can now have the presence of a lagoon as opposed to the outdated cement pond styling. You can add natural looking waterfalls that flow into a lagoon pool at one or even several places. In such a water and paving stones design, the pool deck edges of the swimming pool are formed with paving stones. The area along the water’s edge that meets with landscaped planting beds will be formed with natural rocks.

It is wise to remember though that chlorinated water being constantly splashed on foliage or drenching the soil can be hard on many types of plants. For households where young children are present it might be a good idea to concentrate your poolside gardens on one side of the pool and the paving stone pool deck on the other. This will allow kids to be kids and your lagoon style swimming pool plantings to still be very lovely and healthy. Pavers for pool decks will take anything kids will do to them and still look perfect, making the right choice for family home swimming pool decks.

You can choose dramatic colored pavers for pool decks or light tones that will reflect the sun’s heat. Choosing paving stones that will blend nicely with the rocks and boulders in the garden plantings and also your pool’s waterfalls is best for good flow in design application. Just as when you consider how different boulder colors will appear with certain tones of leaves, pavers for your pool deck will also be better accented with greenery to soften the entire design’s appearance.

Waterfalls are the perfect accent to swimming pools and pavers match both of these backyard living features to a tee. Whether you end up selecting tumbled, cut stone styled paving stones or those that have more of a brick shaped effect, your pool deck and waterfalls designer will be a great assistance to you in getting the finished lagoon pool of your dreams just right.

Stone pavers offer you far more than just beautiful paved surfaces and patio or pool deck flooring. The three dimensional concrete pavers wall blocks are perfect for creating sleek, contemporary waterfalls and even chic ponds that can fit right into almost any area of your outdoor spaces. These streamlined water features can be engineered to have a semicircular arc, sinuous curves of simply straight.

Fashioning both pondless waterfalls and those with a small pond or pool from paving stones makes them perfectly matched to the rest of your outdoor room’s materials. This allows you to add the wonder of cascading water wherever you please no matter what the natural terrain is like. With the freestanding walls that three dimensional stone pavers were invented to create, you can have the height you want even on pancake flat ground.

On your paving stone patio such a water feature with a raised wall pond can double as seating when a cap of natural stone or wall coping is applied. These waterfalls can provide a low focal point that serves as an open air room divider or be fit along and outer edge of your patio. They can be built right against the wall of any building or in your entry courtyard to provide the ambience of waterfalls to greet your guests alighting on the driveway or adjacent from the front steps in your outdoor foyer.

Engineering waterfalls with stone pavers wall blocks is done by fitting a copper sleeve into a slit in the face of the wall. The sleeve is fashioned on site and can be any length that you desire your cascade of water to be. You can also have dramatic colored back lighting installed with fiber optic lights for great nighttime effects. This same style of paver stone construction can serve as a unique and custom fountain when the freestanding wall is fitted with copper or brass pipes. In this type of water feature the water flow is set at more of a trickle and can flow from one or more pipes.

The pond can be set at ground level or raised by one to several courses of three dimensional concrete pavers block. When planting small ornamental fish in your paver stone pond or pool, it is best to keep the sides low for viewing them at play. Should you desire to have fish in your sleek and chic pond, you will also want to provide them with shelter by adding some floating water plants such as Forget-Me-Nots and Lotus. Fish do have predators who hunt from the air, so plants are important to allow them to hide when danger presents itself.

You can have end pillars on the freestanding stone pavers block waterfalls wall or it can be constructed without them. They offer so many perfect places for blending right in and being a presence that is there but yet unobtrusive. The ponds and pools when having this type of paving stones waterfalls features built are either formed with prefabricated polymer tubs or can be customized to follow any shape you require by making excellent use of gunite pool materials.

Long and narrow like a wide channel, square, rectangular, round or even free form curves are all possible using stone pavers wall block for fashioning both waterfalls and pond anywhere in your yard. The finished project can be very sleek for those who love modern styling and formal or more relaxed depending on the design details and where you place the water feature in your landscape.