Before: Our sideyard. Under-used and begging for some attention from a pair of weekend warriors.
Before: Our sideyard 2.
6/30, Day 1: Here's our progress after a long morning and afternoon at Home Depot. We bought lots of supplies and decided a small fence would be the best solution to frame in our stone patio.
6/30, Day 1: We measured and mapped out the area for our patio, unearthed the sod, dug the holes for the fence posts and cemented them in.
7/1, Day 2 - 1:15pm: Drat! We unearth an old/faulty drainage system. Andy, my little Renaissance man, fixes it and reroutes it. It looks like he's annoyed here but this is actually revamped/finished drain, so this is a happy, but tired, Renaissance man. Yay, back onto the original patio project!
7/1, Day 2 - 2:45pm: We painstakingly level and install the rails (right and left). These will help us level the dirt and then the stone dust by dragging the wood at the far end of the photo along the rails.
7/1, Day 2 - end: We dug about 5'' deep and leveled the whole space, which is 11' x 16'.
7/1, Day 2 - end: Another angle - we're all set for the next step. We removed a lot of soil here and re-purposed it in 3 other spots around our house...somehow our projects are multiplying! Ah!
7/1, While we were doing all of our yard work, Miles was resting inside....cone and all. I caught him making out with Lamby, his favorite toy, under the coffee table.
7/6 - The stone dust gets delivered.
7/6 - The bluestone gets delivered.
7/6 - Here's an update on Miles. No need for the cone anymore (you can tell he's satisfied with that decision).
7/7, Day 3: We shovel the stone dust into the patio area and add edging to the front and back. It seemed counter-intuitive to fill in the area we'd dug out last weekend.
7/7, Day 3: Ah, yes...the Wacker (its a plate compactor to compact the stone dust). We rented this at Home Depot, the dude there said that it takes the strength of 3 men to lift this. (Or, just Andy and Ali).
7/7, Day 3: Andy with his Wacker (rented by the hour).
7/7, Day 3: All compacted and ready to go - the level never lies.
7/7, Day 3, 1:30pm: The first stone is in place.
7/7, Day 3: We get the perimeter stones in place. It's not as easy as we thought it was going to be.
7/7, Day 3: Like I said, it's not as easy as we thought it was going to be...
7/7, Day 3: There's a lot of stone dust over the stones, so it's difficult to tell, but we're half way done-ish.
7/7, Day 3: We're beat.
7/7, Day 3: We move the mother of all stones. I don't know how much this sucker weighs but it was definitely heavier than the Wacker and that requires 3 large men to lift it.
7/7, Day 3, 8:30pm: We not finished yet but we're tired, dirty, and it's getting dark. Looks like we'll finish tomorrow!
7/7, Day 3: Here's a quick pic of Miles. He was extra cuddly when we returned at the end of the day.
7/8, Day 4: It's hot today and we've still got the back portion of the patio to go. We're psyching ourselves up to despite our sore muscles and tired bodies.
7/8, Day 4: Almost there!!
7/8, Day 4: We're done with the crazy stone work!
7/8, Day 4: It's hard to explain but I was really excited to hose down the patio. It was like a DIY right of passage or something.
7/8, Day 4: Hopefully the stone people come and pick up the extra stones otherwise we'll have an interesting yard sculpture.
7/8, Day 4: Fence installed, hostas planted...we're done!
7/8, Day 4: Here's the finished product from the back - it's going to look fantastic with some flowers, our table (and wine).
7/8, Day 4: We're totally feeling the sense of accomplishment (and exhaustion).
After: We plant some black eyed susan and hanging flower pots. Just wait until the table is in place!
