The last four days have been nutzo in Patio Land for us (not to be confused with Temptation Island- remember that show?). The good news is that it’s nearly done. Like 90% done. But since I’m a bit low on energy at the moment (and we have to wait for better light to take more pictures), I’m gonna cover as much of our four-day patio-extravaganza as I can muster. The rest will come a bit later when we’re 100% finished (and have a chance to take about a million after shots from every angle).
To recap: as of last Monday the area was all marked, leveled, and dug up.
Then on Tuesday our nearly 10-ton delivery arrived via flatbed (300 square foot patios apparently weigh more than two elephants). As far as deliveries go, it wasn’t that eventful – except that the forklift (seen hooked to the back of the truck below) got a flat tire halfway through, so it delayed things a bit while the guy left to repair it.
But eventually everything made it into our carport in one piece. If you’re keeping track, that’s three giant bags of fill gravel, one giant bag of sand, and three pallets full of cobblestone pavers (two of the rectangular variety and one of the square kind).
We picked a paver called CottageStone by a local company named Eagle Bay. Yup, it’s manufactured right here in Richmond and we discovered it just by asking for the most affordable paver cobblestones at a local stoneyard called Southside Builders Supply (it came out to be around $2 a square foot, which beat both Lowe’s and Home Depot prices by around 75 cents, which really adds up over 300 square feet). The color is a gray-ish tone that they call “Jefferson” (amongst other Virginia-tastic color names like “Blue Ridge,” “Chesapeake,” and even “Richmond”). It was pretty easy to make our color choice because we decided to do our best to roughly match the gray cobblestone pavers that are already in our driveway. So that’s how we picked our poison- er, pavers (read more about the cost of the whole project here). But enough about design decisions and money – let’s get back to the physical labor.
We took Wednesday off Project Patio because it rained, so Thursday was my next work day (while Sherry tended the blog, the baby, and brought me granola bars and water by the hour). As my trusty Lowe’s video and the saleswoman at the stone yard had directed me, the next step was to put down my weed blocker. I picked up this 300 square foot roll of Weed Block and ground staples to hold it down (weirdly called “Crampons”) from Home Depot.
Since we know from experience that weeds and grass love to sprout up between paver stones, we wanted to at least discourage their appearance (although we’re huge rebels… just kidding… we like to follow directions or we start to hyperventilate). Here’s the area all covered in the Weed Block sheets just as recommended. It was pretty easy to cut it to size with scissors and then just stab each row into place with my crampons, so this step only took me about forty five minutes.
Next up: gravel. And not just any gravel – THREE EFFING TONS of it.
Laying this gravel basically consumed my entire Thursday. My wheelbarrow wouldn’t fit through the gate separating the carport and the patio area, so I resorted to carrying the gravel bucket by bucket (thanks to a spare 5-gallon paint bucket that we had on hand) back and forth all day. It was exhausting and disappointing (only because I fully expected to look like Hercules when I was done, but still found myself staring at my usual spaghetti arms). But in the end I was glad that I went the bucket route instead of using the ol’ wheelbarrow, because it allowed me to keep my nylon strings in place, which were invaluable when it came to ensuring that everything was nice and level with a slight slope away from the house (which is really important for drainage reasons).
But my workout for the day wasn’t complete, because the gravel had to be tamped down. First I lightly misted the whole area, which started to turn the loose gravel into more of a cement-like consistency. I paid close attention to the Lowe’s video at this point in the process, which instructed me to make it moist enough to clump, but not to go overboard and get it too wet. So my advice would be not to go spray crazy and just look for that cement-like clumping action and then step. away. from. the. hose.
The tamping was a manual task again (sigh) because we opted to purchase a $30 hand tamper instead of going through the trouble / expense of renting a plate compactor (our car is small, we’re cheap, and I may have already mentioned that I wouldn’t mind bigger biceps). It wasn’t a particularly enjoyable task, but honestly at that point my arms were sorta operating on autopilot. And it was actually really gratifying. You can see how it turned my gravel pit into a flat, semi-solid, and ready-for-sand surface below. It almost looked like asphalt in the end. But sand would have to wait for Friday. Over seven hours of Project Patio was enough for me (and the sun was starting to set anyway).
After taking Clara’s 51-week photo on Friday morning, I threw my patio pants back on and got to laying down a 1″ layer of sand. I couldn’t have done this part without the brilliant tip from the Lowe’s video involving two pieces of 1″ PVC pipe. Praise google.
You basically lay them down side-by-side and then dump your sand over them.
Then using a spare piece of 2 x 4 (or in my case, some extra trim molding) you scrape off the excess sand which leaves you with a flat, paver-ready surface of sand (which is exactly an inch deep thanks to the pipe “spacers”).
Then you carefully pull out the pipes and fill the empty “pipe lines” with a little bit of excess sand (by hand) for a totally flush look. Let’s just say it was a much faster process than the gravel was (since it only had to be an inch deep instead of three, which made it a lot faster to haul). Here it was half-complete:
I would’ve finished faster had I not run out of sand at the very end. But fortunately a quick trip to Lowe’s for a few extra bags did the trick (notice the color change at the far end of the area?).
The last step before we could fiiiiiinally get to putting down stone was to install the plastic edging to hold all of our pavers in place (which will end up being virtually invisible once we backfill it with dirt/mulch on one side and pavers on the other). We had heard different theories about whether you should do this before or after you put your stone down (apparently it can work either way) but we thought it’d be easier to plan our curves with the flexible edging than with the heavy stones themselves. And we can tell you from experience that it was the right way to go for us – definitely consider adding the edging first if you’re doing any sort of curve and would appreciate a nice set guide to follow.
By this point it was about 4pm on Friday. I really wanted to call it a day, but Sherry and I were determined to get some of the pavers down so that we could at least start to see the patio come to life. So I charged forward and promised myself that I’d just put down the entrance area. A couple of hours later (yes, it was slow going at first), I had this:
I’ll get into the ins and outs of cutting and laying the pattern in the next post, but below you can see things progressing slowly but surely. Sherry snapped this pic right after she put Clara down to sleep for the night (hooray for a 7:15 beanette bedtime, which gave us some daylight to work together on it- enabling us to move twice as fast during that narrow evening window). And thankfully we didn’t hear a peep from Clara (you know Sherry had the baby monitor outside on high, just in case). But Clara must have known we were busy making a patio for her birthday bash. Smart kid.
We both decided to put all the cuts on hold for the night so that we could focus on just filling the central patio area with as many whole pavers as our arms could carry (and avoid operating a wet saw in partial darkness as the sun began to set).
By some miracle, our energy held out ’til about 9:30, when we finally laid the last full paver at the far end of the patio. So you can sort of start to see how things are coming together, despite the darkness and all those missing stones around the borders that we still have to cut.
Our camera batteries only lasted long enough to attempt to snap a few totally normal pics of us “conquering” this task. So we just got a few blurry shots like this winner before the camera shut itself down:
Notice how I chose the role of laying down and looking exhausted? I plead that so-tired-you-feel-drunk phenomenon that occurs after a loooong day (when everything makes you die laughing and you kind of lose your mind for a minute).
So now you know how the Petersiks spend a Friday night. Actually, we did cap it off with a Netflix movie (after a much-needed shower, of course). We saw Love & Other Drugs if you’re wondering. And we thought it was just as naked as the critics said, but not bad. Just don’t rent it with the extended family over the holidays or anything (awkward).
Ash says
I just want to say that I love your blog. I also think you motivated me to get moving on our patios. Saturday we started with our smaller patio, about 5′ x 15′, but did the same thing you did. We put in the whole pieces, and have yet to cut the edges. On another weird random note, my husband and I also watched Love and Other Drugs Friday night.
YoungHouseLove says
Wow- that IS weird!
xo,
s
Clare says
Wow! It looks really really good. I cant wait to see the finished project.
Danielle says
Yay! Congrats on the awesome job! It looks beautiful already and I love that curve!
Kristen says
It looks so good! I can’t wait to see pics from the party!
Amy L. says
AAHH!!!!!!! It looks so great!!!
Piper says
Woot! It’s looking fantastic!!
Elizabeth says
Looks amazing!!!!!!!!
Tara says
Awesome guys. We want to do a little walkway from the sidewalk to our front steps (24′ long and 3′ wide) but we thought we’d wait for you to do your’s first.
Question: how did you decide on the pattern? We too want to use the square and rectangle cobblestones and I have seen various patterns online and we’d like one that doesn’t look like a patter, but is (otherwise I think we’d end up with only one shape at the end of the patio). If you explained this and I missed it – sorry!
YoungHouseLove says
We’re going to tackle all the info about the pattern we chose and cutting the end pavers in our next post so you didn’t miss it, we were just too exhausted to get to that! Haha. We still have a few things to tackle before we’re done, but we’ll share all that info soon!
xo,
s
Shreya says
That is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! It looks gorgeous and I’m waiting eagerly for the post on laying the pattern and the finished pics of course!
What a great gift for little Clara :)
gina says
It must feel so good to have accomplished this.
Thank you so much for all the details.
Kristi @ Addicted 2 Decorating says
Wow, I got tired just reading this! Y’all did an amazing job. It looks fantastic!
Ana Silva says
I am exhausted just reading this! WOWZA. That was a lot of work. John you are a beast. It looks so good. So much better, and it will all be worth it in the end. Can’t wait to see the final result. You both keep inspiring me to DIY hard projects.
Kristin says
Amazing. You have to post party pics from the 1 year old bash–I’ll be so dying to see! Congrats!
YoungHouseLove says
We definitely will! We’re so excited for this Saturday- and it better not rain!!!
xo,
s
Jamie says
Oh my god you guys! It looks a-mazing! I can’t wait to see how you decorate it. BTW, Thank you for sharing Clara’s birth story. I literally had to get up from the computer, compose myself and then finish reading the story later. She is a special little girl. That smile is delish!! Love you guys!
chacha says
I can’t believe you did all that in one day!!! Awesome! I know this is totally doable but I don’t think I have your patience to deal with all the layers and the tamping, etc, etc.
Kat says
WOW!!!
You guys should give yourselves a huge pat on the back – it looks AMAZING!!
I love the night shot. It’s going to be such a cozy stargazing spot.
Holly H says
Looks grreat can’t wait to see it all finished up!
Jane @ The Borrowed Abode says
Wowzers. I’m exhausted just reading this.
We had our landlord’s permission to do something like this in our back yard (on his dime) last summer but we chickened out. And now I’m remembering why.
However, what a killer tip about the PVC pipes!
Tanja says
Guys, amazing job, I’m very impressed. It looks so good already even without the cut stone on the sides. I can’t wait to see the finished product.
Tara Hawks says
We did this last year and I must say it was exactly as you describe it. I under estimated the cost and I think hubby underestimated the back breaking work. We had to dig 12-18 inches down because of the slope etc. We even go the kids in on the work they hauled half a pallet of bricks one at a time and stacked them neatly for an ice cream cone, a freezy and the promise of a trip to the beach. All said and done I love our patio and yours looks fab I am sure you will love it too. Oh and next time I have to demolish something I am gonna try the “Thor” technique.
Amy @ larryspearslive.com says
Wow, it looks great!!
heidi says
I have been reading your guys’ blog for about a year and just LOVE it! You guys are fun, cute, talented…clean (language and pictures).
I always tell people to check your blog out, because I think it’s fantastic! Thanks for the inspiration!
Caroline says
psst, John…careful when you tell this part of the story after a beer or two…I can see how a day of you using “crampons” and “tamping” can quickly turn into a LMAO moment! (sorry,I had to!!)
but..don’t worry, you did a very awesome & manly, bicep pumpin’ job!
YoungHouseLove says
We totally had a moment where we died laughing when John said he was “getting his tamp on.” Say it out loud. Then die laughing.
xo,
s
Tamisha says
Amazing. John, you’re a beast. You’re giving me hope (false?) of perhaps girding my loins and doing this in our tiny RVA backyard. I wonder how much digging I would have to do if I was planning on backfilling much of the back yard with compost? In the front we have great soil, but the back is awful VA clay.
Holly West says
I am so impressed. And it makes me happy there is already a patio in our new place because I’m not sure my husband and I could tackle such a huge task. Good work!
Mandie says
Looks awesome- can’t wait to see how you decorate it.
Blair R says
John, you have done such a great job! I don’t even know you, and I feel so proud. lol I hope that one day when we have a home of our own, my husband and I will have the same drive as you and Sherry. Great job (again)!
Melody says
I can’t believe that you did that! It looks like you’ve done it a million times before. Can’t wait to see it all finished!
Dani says
It’s looking really beautiful, but my body hurts just thinking of all the manual labor! I am very excited to see the fully finished product!
Donna Huebsch says
Wow, this is looking GREAT! I can’t believe how quickly you guys are getting this done – it would be a month-long (at least!) project for us.
lauren says
wow…gotta admire the dedication!! looks great. Im sure it will be appreciated at the party!
Micha says
You are DIY -animals-, I’m telling you!
That’s one good-looking patio!
Ana says
It looks great!
And Temptation Island = awesome… but Paradise Hotel = even more awesome ;)
YoungHouseLove says
Oooooh forgot all about that one!
xo,
s
Andrea Surrey says
Wow, you guys rock! You have more energy than my four and seven year old boys and that’s saying a lot. Patio is looking amazing!
julie says
Looks amazing guys!!! Can’t wait to see the finished product!
Bree says
That looks awesome!!!
diana says
This is an astonishement silence, and the sound you’ve just heard is my jaw hitting the floor. Sherry, you lucky girl. And John, errr, sir, hats off (both red and navy)!
Can’t wait for the rest, but truly, amazing!
Sara says
Wow, a one ton bag of gravel actually looks smaller than I’d expected!
RLB says
WOW! The patio looks fantastic. Great choice on the pavers — the grey really complements the red of the brick and the green of the shrubs. Impressive work John and Sherry.
susan says
Fabulous!!!!!!!!!! susan
Lauren says
I am fully impressed right now!!! It looks great and I cannot wait to see pictures of the patio being put to full use at Clara’s party!
Mary Lozano says
All I can say is…you two are amazing!!! So inspiring, really!!!
Carrie @ Hazardous Design says
This is an impressive DIY. You guys are probably saving a ton of cash by tackling it yourself. Looks awesome!
Robin says
Looks awesome guys! So excited to see the final pics and hear how much you love it!
Nicole says
Wow, it looks great! Can’t wait to see the finished result…nice work!
Siobhan says
Wow. Not only do your projects amaze me. Your energy levels do too! I like your stick-to-it-ness.
Liz says
Awesome job!! Everything looks great, congratulations!
DawnSC says
This looks absolutely fantastic, great job! We currently have an ugly slab of concrete that is broken in places but is apparently a big selling point in our neighborhood as “RV parking” – it looks bad and we have no intention of ever needing it for its intended purpose, so we want to put a nicer patio in. We’ll likely go with something a bit more permeable to allow what little rain we get in SoCal to recharge back into the ground, but this post is definitely bookmarked for inspiration! If nothing else, it gives us a bit more confidence that we’re not completely crazy to attempt the project ourselves. :)
Claire says
Your patio looks all sorts of phenomenal and awesome! Wow John. I hope you’re very proud of yourself!
I decided to rent Love & Other Drugs from a Red Box while on a business trip and watch it on the plane ride home. I had an 11-12 year old girl sitting next to me on the plane. I was SO GLAD that she was asleep when the naked scenes came on because I didn’t think she needed to see Jake Gyllenhaal butt or Anne Hathaway’s chest. It got to the point where I just decided to shut it down, especially since I began to fall asleep in front of the computer.
Kim says
I thought you were crazy to do this work-but it looks awesome. Still can’t believe you worked until 9:30, then had the energy to watch a movie so late! Ah, to be young again.