The New Backyard Patio

Final design

Holly has been wanting a backyard patio for a long time now. Since Poppa and Poppi moved in, we have been doing a lot of work in the backyard. Poppi put up some hummingbird feeders that work very very well. We also put up a windmill birdhouse, church birdhouse and cross that Poppi got from her brother who does a lot of woodwork. We started a garden and we put flowerbeds all along the back wall of the house. We got a nice patio table that seats 6 off of craigslist on the cheap. The only thing left to do was the patio.

Took us a bit, but we finally decided where to put it and what size. After pricing out various stones for the patio size we wanted, we had to go with the cheapest of stones. We like them though. After deciding on size and the stones, I started playing with

Patio supplies...check!

MS Paint to figure out a pattern so we know how many stones to buy of each color. Came up with a few designs before I had one we liked.

Technically we started work on the Thursday, April 21st. Holly was slowly digging out the grass from the patio area, along with some help from Poppi. On my way home from work, I stopped at Home Depot (the first of many stops this weekend) and picked up some lumber for the frame. To be honest...I had no clue what I was doing. I read Home Depots brochures on patio and looked at a few blogs and websites. One of Holly's main gripes with patios from the many homes shes worked at as a nanny was that the stones start to shift. So she was happy with the frame I wanted to make for the patio. I would've loved to use those big 6x6 railroad looking pieces of wood for the frame, but again, we had a tiny budget. Shopping for a 15'x11' foot patio, I bought a 2"x6"x16' board for the long edge along the house; two 2"x10"x12' for the sides; and two 2"x10"x8' for the other long edge (couldn't find a 2"x10"x16' for this side). Then just got some brackets and screws for the inside corners and the middle of the long edge I had to piece together.

Friday was the big day. Woke up to a great breakfast with the fam at Chick-Fil-A and then hit up Home Depot which was crazy busy! Long story short...it took 3 trips to get everything home: one trip for the 86 1'x1' silver stones, one trip for the 79 1'x1' terra cotta stones and one trip for all the sand and base. Spent almost half the day at Home Depot. The rest of the day was digging out the grass by the ladies and me digging a trench for the frame.

Saturday morning was a lot more physical. When Friday ended, I had the left edge dug out and the 2x10 in place. Most of the grass was cleared out. Saturday was a lot more of the work. Digging out the trench for the remaining 3 sides and cutting the boards to the right lengths. The trench was the worse. Using a pick axe to dig it out was murder on the back. Remember earlier when I said I didn't know what I was doing? The two boards for the long edge I had to piece together, I measured twice then cut. Unfortunately I measured it incorrectly. One more trip to Home Depot. Finally got everything cut out right, trenches dug, and Holly had the rest of the grass all dug out and transplanted to a bald area by the flowerbed underneath the kitchen window. My "man" skills kicked in and I eye-balled the frame...yup, a perfect rectangle! This was where we were at by the end of Saturday:

The glove now reminds me of the Laverne & Shirley intro

Genius!

Sunday is Easter. We didn't have any big family plans other than church. Church was awesome though. Austin Stone Community Church rented the Frank Erwin Center where the Longhorns play basketball. Holly and I volunteered to help with KidStuff and take care of some rowdy rowdy 3-4 year olds. We heard the podcast for the service later that week. Check it out for yourself, it is pretty amazing. We are sad though that we missed the choir of children from African (I think Uganda?) that worshiped there with us. Also missed an incredibly time of worship by all of our worship leaders. We were bummed later to find out all the recordings of the worship service failed, but I digress...

This is how we do it...

After church and lunch, we put the boys down to sleep then back to work. Needed to start leveling out the ground. That is when my "man" skills kicked in to overdrive. I went back to Home Depot and bought another long 2"x6"x12' board. This was my thought process. The stones are 1" thick. Everything I read recommended 1" of base sand. So need the ground to be 2" below the top of the frame. That is why I got that extra board. I cut a notch on both ends that was 2" up and on the other side cut a notch that was 1" up. So used the 2" notch to start leveling out the ground. Then started pouring out the sand. After a couple more trips to Home Depot, I had enough sand. Used the 1" notch on the board to start leveling out that sand. Then I pulled out a piece of plywood I've had in the garage and used that to place on the sand then jump up and down like mad to pack it, add more sand, pack it in, level it out, etc. The boys had a great time helping Holly and I jump up, jump up and get down. Jump! (Holly had to go in and start getting the boys ready for bed while I worked on the sand, but she came back to record me actin' a fool) By the time we were done Sunday, we were ready to place the stones.

One more day of work left

Fingers crossed!

I had to spend a vacation day so we could finish on Monday. Like eating, I'm a slow worker...a bit of a perfectionist when I get into something. Now the fun part, putting down the stones! It was also the scary part. Once again, I really don't know what I'm doing. I wasn't kidding before, I literally eye-balled the frame. I had I strong guess that the side board along the patio and the board along the edge were good. I measured the distance from the house to the long edge all along the board and I was hoping the house patio was square. That was the extent of what I did to make sure my patio was square. It wasn't until it was all said and done that I remembered when Uncle Mike came over to help build our foundation for the storage shed when I remember measuring the distance between cross corners to make sure it was square. Measuring is for suckers! Monday's work was so much easier. Just started laying out stones in the pattern we designed. When we got to the very last stone...it didn't fit! But we had left small gaps along the way, so we just started shortening all the gaps...still not quite fitting in...after I jumped on it a couple times, perfect fit!

Finally! Not to shabby

We have been making plenty use of the patio. If anyone wants to have a cookout, com'on over! Here is a photo album with more pics of the process. A lot of the process was also keeping the boys entertained while we worked...think that might have had something with this taking for days to complete.



For you young-ins, here is the intro to the Laverne & Shirley sitcom.