I am beginning a backyard patio extension and trying to do the work myself. I have an existing concrete slab but its not quite enough room for us to really enjoy the backyard. My plan is to extend it using a design similar to this...

http://www.houzz.com/photos/1505612/Green-Lake-contemporary-patio-seattle

I have extensively googled the process and come up with my initial plan. I would really appreciate and advice or input from those that have done this before.

I plan to excavate 5in of the yard. I will add metal boarders as the perimeter of the extension. Then add landscape fabric to the excavated area. The first layer will be 2-3" of crushed concrete. I will rent a plate compactor to tamp down and level the base. Next layer will be 1" of screeded sand which the pavers will be set into. My question here is what is the best kind of sand to use? Ive heard concrete sand or mason sand will work. I also will be using stakes and strings to keep everything level with the correct grading for drainage. Once the pavers are set, I plan to infill with Black Star Gravel. Shown here...http://thegroundup.com/base-gravels/black-star

The patio will feed into another pathway and circular area that will have a fire pit in the middle. This area will only have the gravel, no pavers. My process for this area will be the same as above, however no sand. I will use crushed concrete base then top with the Black Star Gravel.

I will try to post pictures sometime today. Again, any advice or suggestions you guys can give would be great. This will be a first for me. I will try to keep the thread updated as we work.

Here is a picture of my Sketchup. First timer, so I couldnt get it to be exactly like I want but its close.

Here is a picture of proposal. Excuse the clutter and people. I will be removing the tree as it is on its way to dying. Not for lack of trying, it was that way when we moved in. The orange outlined area was freehanded to give us an idea of the look.

Other notes. We plan to powerwash and stain the existing slab. Power wash the siding of the house, and eventually paint. And we also plan to stain the existing fence. The fence project is definitely a band-aid to avoid replacing the entire thing at this time.






[This message has been edited by aggieAT07 (edited 8/22/2014 8:56a).]

[This message has been edited by aggieAT07 (edited 8/22/2014 8:57a).]

[This message has been edited by aggieAT07 (edited 8/22/2014 8:57a).]

Well done on Rule #1, at least some people know the rules

Is your yard sloping toward the house?

Yes and No. From the house, the yard slopes away. The rest of the yard is a little uneven. You can see where the mower hit a wet spot. There is a slight "valley" there. Also some lower spots in other areas of the yard.

I hope to use some of the excavated sod and dirt to level some of the dips throughout the yard.

I decided to do this project on the weekend which turned out to be the hottest weekend of the year. Luckily enough I had major help from my brother-in-laws and father-in-law.

I was hoping to post my Google Sketch-up plans but couldnt figure out the best way to do it. If I can figure it out I will update my initial post.

I started working about 4pm on friday and we called it a day at 830ish. Here is what we did on Fri.

Started by removing the half dead tree...


Removing the Sod was brutal.


This was essentially where we ended Friday night.

Nice start. What did you use to remove the sod? Looks like you were able to do it pretty cleanly.

Saturday morning we started at 8am. I didnt do a good job of taking a picture after each step. But I rented a plate compactor and tiller from home depot. Once the sod was removed from the rough outline, we ran the tiller over the entire area and gave it a rough grading with rakes, then ran the plate compactor over the entire area. Next we used a garden barrier to outline the border. Then we layed about 2in of Bank Sand over the entire area and followed it up with another run of the plate compactor.

Boarders and Sand


The tents were a lifesaver, Im not sure we would have been able to work all day in the sun. It was HOT!


Next step was filling the fire pit area with the Black Star gravel. We had them deliver and dump onto the driveway. Shovels and wheelbarrows were used for the rest. We also calculate the spacing of the pavers and began laying them. This was backbreaking work as each paver weighs about 80lbs. It was tedious and slow going at first, but once we got the hang of it, it went much quicker.



Friday night we stopped working about 8pm. It was a long day but we did a ton of work. There were only 2 of us by the end of the day. At this point, my wife and her sister went outside to paint the pavers with a grey concrete paint.

[This message has been edited by aggieAT07 (edited 8/25/2014 10:11a).]

Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of the painted pavers, by themselves. Sunday was a busy day for us as we had some family events to attend. However, I had about an hour and a half to get out there and start filling in the spaces between the pavers. I worked from about 4-45 to 6-15 and here is where I ended up.

The shadows made it hard to see, so I took a closeup. Also, the existing slab will be powerwashed and painted the same color as the pavers.


The tent is temporary and was just used for shade while working.


I have some finishing work to do on the boarders, I am going to add more stakes for support, and I also have more gravel to add to some of hte low spots. The pavers in the background, sitting on the concrete slab will be used to build the firepit.

Senor, we used shovels and wheel barrows. Looking back, I probably should have rented a sod cutter and tiller for day one, but I also dont know how well that would have worked as Ive never used one. Again, this took a while to fall into rhythm, but went relatively quickly once we did.

Speaking of sod, anyone have any ideas of what to do with a huge pile of dirt and sod, its now sitting in a corner of the backyard? One thing I overlooked before the project.

That's a heck of a job for a weekend. But I have a question, in all of the pics, your lady friend is doing the work and you are behind the camera!!!

Finished product looks good.

Someones gotta supervise.

Did you put a weed barrier below the sand base course?

Jack,

We did put some landscape fabric between the dirt and sand base. I can't remember the brand we used but hopefully it will help. I didnt actually work on that part, but I know the in-laws were careful when laying it down to keep it flat and wrinkle free. It was laid down with bricks to keep it flat, then sand was added in sections while bricks were removed. Kind of a methodical approach, if that makes sense.

On another note, when I got home from work, I added some stakes to the outside of the boarder to give a little more strength and rigidity. I'm thinking I should have used a metal boarder as opposed to this composite material. I second guessed myself at the last minute, due to aesthetics, and went with the black composite material as opposed to the green or brown metal boarder. I also needed to add more gravel and back fill the boarder with sand.

The black star gravel is pretty dusty at first but here are a few pictures of what it looks like when wet. And it should permanently darken up after a few rain cycles.

Next steps are to build the fire pit, power wash the concrete slab and siding, then paint the slab.

Nice work! Looks good.

We took advantage of the long weekend and got some work done. I power washed the siding of the house along with the concrete slab. Pretty amazing how nasty each was. Its kind of hard to tell because of the shadows.

Next I repaird/filled in a couple of the cracks on the slab. Then my wife painted the slab to match the pavers.

Monday we had some time to do some more work. I started working on the fire pit and ended up finishing it. The first layer of stones was tedious, but once that was set, I flew through the rest. I used construction adhesive between each layer. We have a few more of the adirondak chairs but only had time to put one together. Ended up fitting perfectly.

Looks good. Any plan to cover it at all or did I skim through that?

Nice work. Where are you located?

Im located in Katy.
We have ideas of adding a pergola over the extension part. We get pretty good shade over the slab, plus the roof lines are a little tricky there so weve had a little trouble from a design perspective.

No plans to cover the fire pit area but we are trying to figure out the landscaping. Lots of ideas but nothing concrete just yet.

What kind of paint did you use on concrete?

What type of cover do you have over that fire pit? What kind of fire pit was that? Steel?

We used something called Olympic Rescue It. Here is a website. Olympic RescueIt Its relatively inexpensive and really easy to use and thats kind of what we were going for. Its basically a thick paint. Just wanted to freshen up the place. This isn't really our "forever" home, however we want to make use of the space while we are there.

The original fire pit was from Lowes or Home Depot. Something along these lines...Fire Pit. The cover came with it. The new fire pit is concrete blocks and was built with these...Fire Pit Blocks

How hot does the patio get? It looks great, I just wonder about walking outside barefoot in the middle of the day.

Thats a good question, I was a little worried about that once the paint went on, but I went out there this weekend and walked around barefoot. It didn't seem any hotter than the exposed concrete.
Another concern is the durability of the paint and how long it will hold up. Only time will tell.

Interesting, glad to hear that the paint doesn't add to the temperature. Looks great!