Backyard with a rectangular swimming pool, lounge chairs, and a covered patio area with outdoor seating and a fireplace.

Design & Build

Outdoor Living Spaces in Northern Virginia

An outdoor living space is a set of rooms outside: a floor to stand on, fire to gather around, light to stay out past dark, water for sound, and planting that ties it all together and gives it privacy. Most homeowners come to us wanting one piece, a patio or a fire pit, and leave with a plan for the whole backyard because the pieces work better designed together than added one at a time.

Every Element, Designed as One Space

Patios & Hardscaping

The floor of the space. Pavers or natural stone set the layout everything else builds around, from a simple sitting patio to a full outdoor kitchen and dining area.

See Patios & Hardscaping →

Fire Features

A fire pit or fireplace turns a patio into a destination people use after sunset and into the fall. We size and place it for the seating layout, not as an afterthought or decorative feature.

See Fire Features →

Outdoor Lighting

Lighting is what makes the space usable after dark and what makes the landscaping around it worth looking at from inside the house. Path, step, and accent lighting all get planned into the same design.

See Outdoor Lighting →

Water Features

A pondless waterfall or fountain adds sound and motion without the maintenance of open water, and works in yards where a full pond would crowd the space. For properties with room for a Koi pond, we also specialize in designing and building filtration systems for Koi to thrive.

See Water Features →

Planting

Planting is what softens the hardscape and gives the space privacy from neighbors. It is designed alongside the patio and lighting, considering color, texture, bloom seasons, and surrounding elements for a cohesive landscape.

See Planting →

Design Once, Build in Phases

The master plan covers the whole yard: where the patio sits, where the fire feature goes, where lighting and water fit in, and how the planting frames all of it. Once that plan exists, you can build every element in one season or spread it across two or three years as budget allows, and each phase still fits the ones before it because nothing was designed in isolation. That is the practical advantage of one company owning the whole project: grading, drainage, and electrical only get planned once, not re-solved by a different contractor for every phase.

Built, Not Just Rendered

Our featured projects page shows completed outdoor living spaces across Northern Virginia, patios with fire pits, koi ponds paired with stone fireplaces, and pool surrounds built as full backyard renovations. Every photo is a finished Sunrise project, not a rendering. See our featured landscape design projects.

Outdoor Living Questions We Hear Most

Outdoor living project pricing depends on the size, scope, and access of your property, and how many elements you combine into one build. A single-element project like a patio or fire pit costs less than a full space combining patio, fire, lighting, and water. Every proposal follows a design and site walk, not a phone estimate.

Yes, and most are. We design the full plan once so every phase fits the ones before and after it, then build in an order that fits your budget and timeline, often patio first, then fire and lighting, then water in a later phase.

A single element like a patio or fire pit finishes in one to two weeks. A full multi-element space built in one continuous phase typically runs six to ten weeks depending on scope and weather.

One contractor who designs and builds every element avoids the gaps that show up when a patio contractor, a lighting installer, and a pond builder never talk to each other. Grading, drainage, and electrical only get planned once when one team owns the whole project.

Ready to design the whole space at once? Book a free consultation or call 703-544-0028.