We've been thinking about extending our small patio for months now. I think that it was partially because of all the work we knew was involved. Last week we finally got serious about it. We really thought this project was going to be a horrendous task, but in the end it really wasn't so bad and it was all totally worth it!
Our original patio was probably about 11' by 10', just enough to have a couple pots of plants and a sliding glass door. It definitely wasn't big enough for any seating though! Our patio furniture sat off to the side in the rocks. This made it really hard to enjoy the backyard because the patio was the only space, other than the decking around the pool, that we could enjoy without shoes. Oh by the way, I hate shoes!
This decision took us a long time to follow through on. It took countless trips to Home Depot and Lowe's to pick out which kind of pavers we wanted. We finally made a decision and bought a few to take home. Then I picked up a pattern book and our project finally took some roots. We finally splurged and ended up spending about $600 on the pavers themselves. We happened to have picked the most expensive kind, of course. Each paver was almost $1 a piece.
So the first step was to clear out the gravel and get down to the dirt. Then we picked up some of the screen or screet at the local nursery. This is the stuff they screen out of the larger sand. The screen was poured on top of the dirt, about an inch or two across, depending upon how uneven it was in places. This had to be completely level and was one of the most time consuming steps of the whole project. Once that was started, I went in and started placing the pavers. I used a rubber mallet to tap them into place and make sure they were level with the existing patio.
Of course, I had a pattern picked out so I had to place the pavers. Once I figured out the pattern, it was a breeze and it became fun to solve the problems I came to on the ends and how to make it even without needing to make a lot of cuts.
Speaking of cuts, this part wasn't as difficult as we had anticipated. We used a hand saw and a diamond blade to cut about 1/4 of the way through and then used a chisel to break it apart.
After all of the pavers were placed, we had to spread playground sand into the cracks. Then we wet the area and we'll push more sand into the cracks as the week goes by. This part is a process and it takes the sand settling into the cracks over a period of time for them to fully set. We also used a plastic strip on the raw edges to make sure the pavers stay in place. This is really easy to instal, it's an L shaped plastic strip and we just had to hammer the stakes into the ground.
All in all, this was not nearly as intensive as we had originally thought. We're even considering extending into the other side!
And look! I even got another planter space out of it all!
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