Patio Project part 4 - Pavers (finally)

   As with a lot of projects, preparation is key. Installing the actual pavers took nearly a week, but that was on top of about a month of prep work. That all turned out to be for the better as the pavers went in pretty smoothly. Here is the whole yard with road base spread out:

Calvin and Natalie cameo

   After getting the road base in place, tome for some manly compaction! I rented a plate compactor from Home Depot and got everything flattened and level. Road base compacts really well. I did the edges and stair area by hand with a hand tamper.

Compacted 

   Care to guess how many pavers I used? A lot. Almost 1300. Took about 5 trips with the uHaul trailer. 

1 load of bricks

   We started by laying down some 1" conduit and then putting sand around it. By dragging a 2"x4" across the conduit, we got a nice smooth surface to put the pavers down on. You can see the edging pavers already in place.

The starting corner

   And in go some paver! Once they started going down, it went pretty fast. It was also really rewarding to finally see it happen after weeks of digging.

First pavers going down

   We just worked across the patio like this. Along the edges we cut pavers to match the curves with a paver saw also rented from Home Depot. RIP saw blade. After this project it was pretty much ruined.

Top area almost done

   The bottom area was about the same. Took a day off due to the rain, but that made the road base extra packed, so it was ok. we also went to a brewery to let things blow over which was also ok.

Lower area with sand

Lower area with some bricks laid

   And all done! I was very happy with how it turned out. There was still some little stuff to do, level out some areas that settled and seal the cracks with polymeric sand.

   Threw some furniture on there...

Table and rolling storage thing

   Some seating

Some chairs

   Even some lights for night time!

Mood lighting

   That's about it for this project. I'm really happy with how it turned out, but man was it a lot of work! Once the weather changes back to warm and light out, com on over and enjoy a BBQ with us!