Pergolas and canopies. Timber, aluminium and louvred systems. Shade in July, shelter in September, and a defined outdoor room rather than an exposed patio.
Outdoor kitchens. Built-in cooking, worktops, storage, and the services to run them. Positioned where the smoke does not blow through the back door, which is less obvious than it sounds and gets forgotten regularly.
Fire pits and firetables. Built-in or freestanding, with the surrounding surface specified to take the heat.
Garden lighting. Layered rather than flooded path lighting for safety, uplighting into trees, and low-level light around seating. Done properly, it makes a garden usable after dark. Done badly, it makes it look like a car park.
Power and water. External sockets, outdoor taps, and cabling run at design stage rather than surface-mounted afterwards because nobody thought about it.
Garden rooms and outbuildings. Bases, services, and groundworks, and the landscaping that ties them into the rest of the garden.
Every one of these things is far cheaper and far better if it is designed in from the start.
Lighting cable and power runs are trivial to lay in an open trench during the groundworks. Retrofitting them afterwards means lifting paving you have just paid for. The same goes for a gas run to an outdoor kitchen, a water supply to a tap, and a level, load-bearing base for a hot tub which weighs a great deal more than people assume once it is full and occupied.
We ask about all of it at design stage, even where you have no intention of building it this year. Running the cable and capping it costs almost nothing now and saves a great deal later.
Usually not in a rear garden within permitted development limits. Height, position relative to boundaries, and listed buildings or conservation areas are the things worth checking.
We build the base, run the power and water, and landscape around it. The base is the part people underestimate a filled and occupied hot tub is a serious point load and needs a proper reinforced base, not slabs on sand.
Under a covered pergola, genuinely yes. In the open, it gets used far less than people imagine when they commission it. We will say so before you spend the money.
Yes, though it costs more than doing it during a build because cable runs have to be worked around finished surfaces. Still very much worth doing.