Building a Patio, Weekend 1

Linda's brother Brian lives in our house. Brian is just moving up from North Carolina and is staying in our basement until he gets things settled and can start to look for a house in MD. Why our basement? We have a big basement with its own kitchen, so he can chill in a pretty nice "underground apartment".

Why do I talk about Brian when the post is titled patio? For Christmas, to show his appreciation for his pending move into our house, Brian bought us a really nice outdoor fire pit. Linda said it would look great on the deck. I said we can't put a fire pit on a wooden deck. Thus was born the patio, a herculean effort whose blame I place squarely on Brian's back, as my back, currently, hurts quite a bit.

So how do you build a 300 sq. ft. patio?

Step 1: Lay everything out to make sure it fits.



Step 2: Dig


Step 3: invite inlaws over to perform manual labor.


Step 4: Smooth out the dirt.


We've got 6 tons of gravel and 4 tons of powdered rock and 900 patio pavers en route next week.