Building a Patio - Part 2

In my last post, I wrote about the main building materials I purchased for my new paver patio. In addition to the those building materials I also needed to pick up some tools and smaller materials, including:

• Spade and flat shovel


• Bow rake (not a leaf rake, make sure the tines are solid and not flexible)


• Large level and torpedo level


• Mason string


• 18 inch wooden stakes


• Wheelbarrow


• Tape measure

Once I had all the materials, it was time to figure out the size and layout of the patio. As you can see in the photo below, the back yard held a lot of "promise."

The wife and I decided that we wanted to go with an L-shaped patio with the long part of the L along the house. We laid out some spare concrete bricks in the yard to approximate the layout and figure out the size. The final dimensions of the patio were 18ft. long against the house and 20ft. deep away from the house. We cut out a 6ft. x 5ft. piece to turn the patio into the L-shape that we wanted. This left us with a patio with a total of 330 sq. ft. That may seem like a lot but most of the research I read before building the patio warned against underestimating the size of the patio. Knowing that, we decided to go with the safe route and error on the large, instead of small size. You can see the bricks that we laid out in the photo below.

The wife and I removed the old pavers and the remainder of the brick walkway that had weeds growing through it long before we bought the house. Whoever said that demo is fun, well, was wrong. One of the issues is figuring out where to put all of the old stuff. It's one of those things where the pavers and bricks can't just be thrown into the trash can and put out to the curb but there isn't enough there to warrant renting a dumpster. We still may put some of the better bricks up on Craigslist or figure out something to do with them ourselves.

Now that we have the materials and have cleared out the old pavers and bricks, it is time to build the patio. In my next post, I'll discuss the first phase of patio building, excavation.