My Magical Patio

Given the insanity of the last two years, I am playing catch up with some major home improvement projects. The summer of 2019 became the year of my magical patio! The prior year, I had listed my house for sale hoping to get my daughter into a different school district. But after losing out on two houses, I decided to simply improve on what I had here. And my magical patio was born!

Where do I start?

As is my custom, I called my dad and said, “Hey, what are you doing this weekend?” That’s how the upstairs bathroom remodel began. My second call was to Kraus’s Department Store. Since I was using pavers, I knew we had to start with removing the sod. I try to shop locally, and Kraus has everything. We rented a sod cutter and got started the weekend before Labor Day, 2019.

Figuring it Out

I’ll admit, I was in over my head. My yard has a much bigger slope than I thought. That becomes readily apparent when you’re trying to lay pavers. After creating a step for a table area, we decided to build the patio up with a retaining wall and gravel. I grabbed my spade Phil, and we proceeded to dig out the foundation area for the retaining wall. My dad also hired a gravel shooter to fill the area with pea gravel. I was at work that day (unfortunately), but my daughter managed to grab a picture. From there, it was just a matter of evening out the gravel and laying the pavers on the paver base sheets.

Finishing up My Magical Patio!

Once we had all of the pavers laid, it was time to sand and finish up. This is still something that I’m working on. I needed a couple of years to live on the patio to make sure everything was where I wanted it before I used the final construction adhesive and polymeric sand. I also built an amazing fire pit slightly off-center. There are city requirements that say how far it needs to be from structures, so it’s a bit off. But it fits my furniture perfectly.

Final Thoughts

Building this patio is probably the most amazing thing I’ve ever done. I’ve added some additions over the last two years, and posts on those are forthcoming. This patio was my savior during the shutdown and stay-at-home order. I spent almost every night of 2020 out there celebrating its greatness with wine. All my materials came from Home Depot. We had a few delivery issues, but overall, I cannot complain. I got exactly what I needed in a timely manner and I did all of it, including furniture and fire pit, for under $10k. I feel like a really earned my DIY Diva patch with this one. Cheers!