Building a Patio - Part Two

Time for more patio building today.  Our patio is slowly coming together - its just the nature of our lives.  We have pockets of time on the weekends to complete steps between student events.  I'm pretty sure you could do this project in a weekend.  This next step did not take all day like the last, but don't get me wrong - it was still labor intensive - as I'm sure every step of this project will be.  So let's get going...

We left off with a big pit - and a nice pit at that.  It was now time to start filling in our base for the patio.  The first layer is a type of gravel.  We used a gravel called "crush and run".  This is a mixture of driveway gravel and fine sand.  We purchased it at a local place called Mulch Masters (where we get our mulch).

This step included a lot of wheel barrowing and shoveling.  So, I have to say how blessed we are to have amazing friends.  Mark was here again to help as well as another good friend - Buddy.  Even though this is back breaking work, you can still enjoy yourself.  Note that Buddy is wearing a white headband/red shirt and Mark is wearing a red headband/white shirt (headbands are the sleeves of the others shirt).  You know, common patio building uniforms.

Ok, so back to patio building.  Once you have all of your gravel mixture in place its time to tamp it down.  You could do this with a hand tamp or you can rent a tamper.  The place we purchased our gravel had tamp rentals - $39 for four hours.  We totally went with that.  It was sooooo worth it.  If its in your budget - rent a tamper.

After tamping it will look all smooth and pretty.

Buddy and Mark were not the only helpers for the day.  Silas pulled his weight as well.  If only that was a real lawn mower - our grass weeds are needing a mow.  Sowing grass will definitely be in our near future - we have a mess back there.  

So, after your gravel mixture is all tamped you need to add the next layer.  In our case we decided to use screening.  A lot of people use sand - either will work.  Screening is similar (its really fine crushed rock) - it provides the drainage like the sand but gives a more compact and hard base...so we went with that.

Then it was time for more tamping...you can see how the rental tamper came in handy, sped up the process and was worth $39.

We were now left with a nice smooth and compact base - ready for pavers.  The final patio step to come soon!  I can't wait to be relaxing back there!

Thanks for stopping by today!

PS - Here is our Part One of Building a Patio