The Patio

One week until the big day. Surprisingly, things are going quite well. I have dedicated most of my evenings and weekends to completing the backyard in time, and the patio has turned out quite well. All are impressed. I'll break it down into three categories.

#1: after digging the hole, we added stone dust to create a layer for drainage and levelling (cheaper than sand and just as good). Despite what people say, apparently level is a personal opinion. Being a perfectionist, I consider level to be perfectly level. So far as I can tell, that's impossible when putting in a patio. We came darn close, but know that when some jacka*s says "make sure its level!" when you tell them you're building a patio (which they will) you should just kick them in the groin and continue about your business. Next came the paving stones, which I got at the Depot. I would suggest renting a trailer to cart them home (if you've got a truck with a hitch) or you will end up making 5 trips to the store. I know, it happened to me. While I did make a lasting friendship with Jim the garden center worker, it did suck. We used 230-something stones. Easy math will get you through. Lenght x width. It helped that my pavers were 1'sq. We used bricks as a border as well. Just measure linear ft. there... We needed about 105 at 8" of length each. It took a whole day, but it was worth it. The last step was to shovel stone dust on the surface of the pavers and sweep it into the cracks. Then you wet it down with a hose and you're done. I would give it a week or two to settle out before making any judgements. I couldn't sleep for two days because I thought it was horribly uneven. I even thought about taking it all out and meticulously placing each paver back in. I'm glad I didn't.

#2: The margin. Okay, with the patio all squared away, it was time to work on the details. Through a connection at Luck Stone, we got a discount on Colonial Pea gravel. Yet another friend of mine with a truck lended a hand and we made two separate trips to pick up .5 ton per trip (once again, trailer would be key). I spent my evenings shoveling pea gravel into the wheelbarrow and spreading it around the edge of our deck. I tried to dig out some dirt leading up to the patio so that it would act as a retaining wall for the gravel. Then I cleared out the pea gravel to add the slate stepping stones. It looks really really nice.

#3: Finally, the rest of the yard. Well, I've revived my campaign to grow grass with less than stellar results so far. I have to keep in mind, growing a nice lush patch of grass in two weeks is a little demanding, so I've gone ahead and rented a dance floor for the event. While I doubt much dancing will occur, it'll at least cover up the dirt patch. I put down "sun and shade" seed and covered it with a bale of straw from Southern States. Yesterday, my friend Zub came over and helped cut down the tree branch that hanged over the patio. It was mainly to accomodate the arrival of the tent in 7 days, but I think in the long run it will give more sun, and thus more possibilities, to the yard. But that branch did make it kind of cozy... :(