We did a lot of work today. After a rest, an errand, and a chicken dinner at the Shorewood Men's Club summer BBQ, we are sitting on the couch waiting for game five of the Stanley cup finals to start and I don't know that we will make it through the whole game tonight.
We finished fitting landscaping fabric in the dirt patch in the back, and then filled the hole with sand.
Mr. H. got a cool tamper, which I used to pack down the sand as we went along.
Taking some advice from various DIY sites and a Better Homes & Garden book I picked up from the free shelf at work, we worked the perimeter first, placing large stones around the outside of the area we had prepared.
After hosing down the patio to help the stones settle into the sand, after cleaning the tools and rinsing the messy driveway, after moving the excess stone (about three-quarters of a ton left over) from the front yard to the back, after selecting stones for a path along the garden bed in the front yard and putting them in position, we finally moved the furniture to the patio and sat down.
We did not get up for a long, long time.
We are both so pleased with how this turned out! I know that I can't stop taking trips to the kitchen to look out the window at our wonderful new patio. A patio is the big outdoor project we have wanted to tackle ever since we moved in to this house, and I'm so glad we set a deadline for ourselves and got it done. Now we have the rest of the summer to enjoy our work!
We finished fitting landscaping fabric in the dirt patch in the back, and then filled the hole with sand.
Mr. H. got a cool tamper, which I used to pack down the sand as we went along.
Taking some advice from various DIY sites and a Better Homes & Garden book I picked up from the free shelf at work, we worked the perimeter first, placing large stones around the outside of the area we had prepared.
The work went pretty quickly and we filled the area with stones in about 90 minutes. After that, we took our time to make sure each stone was secure, adding or removing sand as needed. We took out some stones and looked for different sizes to better fill the spots. Eventually, we ended up with something that pleased both of us.
After hosing down the patio to help the stones settle into the sand, after cleaning the tools and rinsing the messy driveway, after moving the excess stone (about three-quarters of a ton left over) from the front yard to the back, after selecting stones for a path along the garden bed in the front yard and putting them in position, we finally moved the furniture to the patio and sat down.
We did not get up for a long, long time.
Remaining tasks: filling the gaps with dirt, planting creeping thyme, selling the leftover flagstone on craigslist or something, returning the 21 bags of unused sand to Menards, and finding a chiminea. So...not quite done, but the bulk of the work is over. Hooray!
We are both so pleased with how this turned out! I know that I can't stop taking trips to the kitchen to look out the window at our wonderful new patio. A patio is the big outdoor project we have wanted to tackle ever since we moved in to this house, and I'm so glad we set a deadline for ourselves and got it done. Now we have the rest of the summer to enjoy our work!
Those flagstones look huge and heavy. What a beautiful job, though! It looks GREAT! Would you post some dimensions?
ReplyDeleteThe patio is roughly 12 x 16 feet with a slight swoosh at the north end. We ordered Lannon stone "steppers" from a quarry, which meant we got a load of flat rocks that varied in size from 12 to 30 inches, with a few being larger than that. Some were very heavy and required both of us to lift them.
ReplyDeleteWe did pretty well in placing them initially; it was like a jigsaw puzzle without a picture or a guarantee that all of the pieces came from the same box! On a second pass, we took out some stones that didn't fit together as well as we would have preferred, and actually broke a few to fit the new holes. Nate has amazing stuff in the basement. He whipped out a chisel and a 5-pound hammer and went to town.