Okay so as you can see below, we had pretty much nothing in our backyard when we moved in. The longer we lived here the more we realized how very imperative it would be to get this giant dirt land taken care of. Especially with two dogs who like to dig, and wrestle and run around....which brings fabulous amounts of dirt into the house and gets all over everything. We WASH our furniture, we don't dust it. We also wash every cup/dish/pan we pull out of the cabinets because after 2 days in the cupboard, you can guarantee there will be some dirt on those suckers.
The other reason is this happens when we have some raindrops 4 times a year. I feel as though this does not require explanation or reasoning. If you love to mop all day every day and wash your interior kitchen walls of mud splatter than maybe you would choose to leave your yard like this. I do not like to do those things, pretty much ever, let alone multiple times a week.
Another massive problem is that this girl really loves to dig large holes. Here is some pouting after getting out in trouble for digging large holes.
She also really enjoys making forts under the patio. Obviously. (You can't tell from this photo, but she was like a foot deep and 2 feet under....dang dog)
So we decided that the first thing we would do to fix these problems was extend our patio out a little bit, give us some space for a grill or some patio chairs, somewhere you could stand without being in the dirt. We thought this would be a fairly simple and cheap task. Better than hiring someone to come pour concrete anyway, and less permanent in case someone ever needed to rip it out. So we began on the last cool day of May when it was about 80 degrees. We started with digging. There were hours and hours and hours and hours of digging.......and of course I have no pictures of that accomplishment. It was hard as rock, took pick axes and sweat and blood and almost tears.....but we got about 3 inches down so we could FINALLY get started. The next task was to visit the good ol Home Depot......about 7 times since you can't pick up 3500 pounds of concrete in one trip.....weird. After 7 trips your patio should look something like this.
In case you didn't want to count, that's about 100 bazillion 12x12 concrete tiles. actually it's only about 234.....roughly.
Next, you should buy some cheap lumber and outline the area in which you plan to place about 234 bricks, making sure it is level. During this step you should also call your Dad and have him come rescue and help you since you are completely exhausted and entirely clueless about how massive home projects really are.
At this time, you should return yet again to the Home Depot and buy a ridiculous amount of sand in no less than 3 trips...... pour that sand into your framed area and spread as evenly as possible with the back of a metal rake.
Have your genius Dad show you all the tricks to actually making a patio work. Using a very straight piece of lumber, level out your sand about 2 feet in front of you as a working space to lay your tiles.
Here you see Josh laying the tiles. starting at the edge and being careful not to put huge dents in your sand, slowly lay the tile flat. It is best to create a small indent with your finger first along the edges of the two tiles already in the ground so the tile just fits right in. then you are less likely to undo your leveling.
After you drop a tile in, have your dear old Dad pound that sucker with a rubber mallet. Actually pound very lightly! It's only to level out the tile a little bit and get it situated. This should be done after every tile. Obviously I was slow on this whole picture thing.
Take a rest in the wheelbarrow because you are now hot and exhausted.
In the places where the patio doesn't measure an exact even foot, turn a brick sideways and you'll save yourself the hassle of freaking out about how it's off by half an inch. Plus, your exhaustion will get the better of you and you won't even care anymore......
Isn't it lovely? On a completely different day, when you have recovered from the horrible tiredness of building out your patio, clean off your wooden border so you can install some bricks to make it look finished. This is the sort of part I mentioned in the title.....see most people actually make a border with bricks and mortar. Here's two things you should know.....1) I am lazy about DIY, but I am extremely picky that it looks nice. 2) I am extremely cheap and could not afford the amount of mortar. Nor did I want to spend extra days on this thing.
We inherited some free thin brick a while back! You should probably have some sort of brick on hand for the next part.....this thin stuff is perfect cause its light weight and it looks just like a normal brick once attached to your border.
Next, visit the Home Depot YET AGAIN. Buy an insane amount of wood glue. Or just a gallon and a small bottle you can squeeze- preferably one you can handle squeezing for like an hour, or sometime until your hand falls off.
Add a decent amount of wood glue to the back of your brick and lay that sucker down on your wood. I am OCD about making sure the glue looks nice even on the backs of things, so that's why mine has this loopy design. Don't over glue. You don't want that stuff dripping everywhere, that just causes you massive pains later.
Remember when I said I was lazy? Lay out like 7 bricks at a time, put glue on all of them, turn them all over onto the wood, save yourself some time and give you glue arm a break!
Try to space the bricks fairly evenly apart. For perfectionist purposes and for the laying of mortar later.
Here's what it should look like when you are all finished with the glueing process. I have yet to mortar between these suckers, but once I do, you will never know that there is lumber underneath. Tricky tricky.
Happy Patio Building!
And I leave you with the addition of these two areas. We had a massive amount of excess tile left over. And guess who was trying to build a fort under the AC unit? You guessed it.....so we fixed that problem by blocking her out with pavers......or so we thought....she's started digging under those this week. Freaking furry kids.
In case you were curious, our total cost for this project was around $700. That included all of our tiles, lumber, mortar and sand. Not too bad, considering we added 200 square feet of patio!
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