Let’s revisit the backyard overhaul project. You remember, when it wasn’t covered in 5 feet of snow and ice. When we used to work outside and not believe that our fate was surely hypothermia. Remember those days, when the temperature got above 12?

Well, let’s get on with the project….

I think we all remember how this project got rolling. Rip off the old deck and add a new, structurally sound one. Well, I left the house for 2 hours and came back to a jackhammered patio and a complete tear down in our backyard. Here’s how we built it back up.

Step 1: Make sure your wife is out of town before you give the jackhammer the green light.

The rubble

Step 2: You will have to even out the entire area where the patio is going to be. We had to deal with hundred year old tree roots and buried bricks. It’s really important that it’s level so your pavers don’t get all weird.

Step 3: You’re going to need pea size gravel. A lot. We used a ton (seriously, 1 ton of gravel). It is relatively inexpensive. It’s the delivery fee that gets you. I think the cost of the rock was $25 but the delivery was $75. You need to spread a thin even layer of the gravel in your leveled patio area. We rented an electric compactor from Home Depot to make sure everything was level and even. This was one of the hardest parts of the work. Moving wheel barrow after wheel barrow full of the rock was hard work!

Step 4: Laying the pavers. You will need sand and your choice of paver. We chose EX Cobble pavers from Menards. They have handy kiosks available where you type in your patio dimensions and it prints out exactly the amount of pavers and sand you’ll need. It saved us a ton of trips back and forth!  After laying all of your pavers you will add the sand and then use the electric compactor to really get the sand locked into place. After that round you wet it down, add more sand, repeat. We considered adding the cement locking sand but for some reason or another never really got around to it. We haven’t had a problem with our pavers moving at all.

    Step 6: Enjoy! I couldn’t find an after picture of just the patio. Who knows what I did with it. Unfortunately, I can’t go snap one since it’s under about 7 inches of snow. Here’s a backyard photo. Hopefully that helps you get an idea of your end result.