No down payment. You pay when the project is finished.
Monday – Friday, 9:00 AM – 7:00 PM · Capitol Hill, Seattle
Hardscaping · North Seattle
North Seattle is the gentlest ground we work on inside the city, and that changes the job in a useful way. Broad flat platforms run through Wedgwood, Maple Leaf and the Green Lake basin, with real grade appearing only at the ravine edges and toward the Sound. Less slope means fewer retaining walls and more paving, which sounds simpler and is — right up to the point where flat ground and glacial till meet winter rain. On a slope water at least leaves. On a flat north-end lot it stays, and the thing that decides whether a patio here is a success is the base under it and the drain route out of it, not the paver on top.
Flagstone stepping path with a river rock edge and fresh bark beds in a north Seattle garden
What we get called about
North Seattle is where the flat lots are, which changes what the work is. Instead of the terracing and wall-building that dominates the south and west of the city, jobs here are about making a large flat garden do something — a patio that gets used, planting that reads year-round, and drainage that stops a level lawn from becoming a level pond. Flat ground drains worse than sloped ground, not better, and on till that matters.
Worth knowing in North Seattle
Ask what the ground does in January rather than what it looks like in July. Flat north-end lots that seem perfectly dry in summer are frequently saturated in winter, and that is the condition the base has to be designed for.
The method
The sequence does not change between neighbourhoods — what changes is the ground it is applied to. Full detail on the hardscaping service page.
Before anything is priced. Where the water arrives, where it currently goes, and where it will go once a few hundred square feet of ground stops absorbing it. On a sloping lot this changes the design, not just the drainage line.
Walls before paving, drainage before both, and anything needing machine access before the route in is closed off. A correct sequence is most of what keeps a multi-element job from costing twice.
Wall height, Environmentally Critical Area, impervious surface limits. Three elements each individually exempt can still cross a threshold together, and finding that out mid-build is the expensive version.
Excavation to the depth the use requires, compaction in lifts, and the drainage placed as the structure goes up rather than added at the end. None of this is visible when the job is done, which is why it is where a cheap quote saves money.
Paving, wall faces, caps, stone. The part everyone is paying attention to, and the fastest part of the job when the three steps above were done properly.
Edges, jointing, the soft landscaping back in, and the levels checked against where the water is meant to go. We walk the finished fall lines with you rather than asserting them.
What it costs in North Seattle
North Seattle paving sits at the lower end of the range — $20 to $50 per square foot for a paver patio — because there is less excavation and better access than on the hillside neighbourhoods. The drainage line item is larger here than the slope would suggest, typically $10 to $25 per linear foot, and it is the one not to trim.
You pay after the project is fully completed.
The estimate you sign is the price you pay.
Spread the cost with no interest.
Covers hardscape work; vegetation excluded.
Local questions
General questions about this service are on the service page. These are the ones that only come up here.
Flat ground has nowhere to shed water, and the glacial till underneath will not accept it. Water that would run off a slope simply sits. The answer is rarely a steeper patio fall — it is a base built deep enough in free-draining material that it does not act as a sponge, plus a drain route that takes water somewhere definite rather than into a lawn that is already full.
No, and the difference is worth knowing. Most of the district is glacial till, but there are sandier outwash pockets toward Ballard and Crown Hill that drain noticeably better. A base specification that is right in Wedgwood may be more than you need in Crown Hill, and permeable paving that works in the outwash can fail over till. We dig a test hole rather than assume the whole district behaves alike.
Not for structure, often for definition. Flat lots here rarely need retaining walls, but low garden walls and raised beds do real work: they lift planting out of ground that stays wet, define a patio edge, and give you soil you control rather than the heavy stuff that came with the lot. That is a different product priced per linear foot rather than per square foot of wall face.
Different job, closer to hillside Seattle. Genuine grade at the Carkeek and Thornton Creek ravine edges means retaining walls or terracing with drainage built in behind them, and the four-foot permit threshold measured from the bottom of the footing applies. Terracing into two shorter walls frequently avoids that threshold while giving more usable ground than one tall wall would.
Serving North Seattle and surrounding neighbourhoods
Ballard · Fremont · Wallingford · Green Lake · Phinney Ridge · Greenwood · Crown Hill · Northgate · Maple Leaf · Lake City · Wedgwood · View Ridge · Ravenna · University District · Laurelhurst · Sand Point
98103 · 98105 · 98107 · 98115 · 98117 · 98125 · 98133
Recent work
Paver PatioView full sizeA circle is the hardest shape to lay well — every course has to be cut to the radius. Capped seat wall around the back, contrasting inner ring under the fire bowl, path lights set into the bed edge.
WalkwaysView full sizeA side yard nobody used, turned into a proper route to the back garden.
StoneworkView full sizeStone-faced beds following the footing line, planted the day they were finished. Raising the soil away from the wall is what keeps water off the render.
Outdoor LivingView full sizeA gabled pavilion on white posts with stained beams overhead, a stone-faced bar with stools along the house wall, and a paver terrace running out under all of it. Built as one structure rather than a roof added over an existing patio, which is why the posts land on the paving instead of interrupting it.
We come out, look at the ground, and put a fixed written price together. No deposit, and it does not change once agreed.
Free estimate
Three minutes on the form. We reply during office hours, Monday – Friday, 9:00 AM – 7:00 PM, and we come out and look at the site before quoting anything.
Or call (425) 331-9811
Thank you — we have your details. We reply during office hours, Monday – Friday, 9:00 AM – 7:00 PM. If it is urgent, call (425) 331-9811.
