Backyard Patio Project

I recently completed a new flagstone stone patio project that I have been working on off and on for a couple of months. It probably shouldn't have taken me this long, but it was just me and my dad working on it for the most part. I also may or may not have put it off a couple of weekends to go fishing. This was my first DIY project on my house that I purchased in December, and it is the first of many that I have planned. I am fairly proud of the way it turned out, so I figured I would come share it with the OB.

1. First step was ripping up this terrible looking, rotten stand alone deck left by the previous owner.


2. I chose to make my new patio a circle with a 16ft diameter (+/- 202sqft.) I dug down about 6 inches deep to prepare for my paver base.


3. I used 4 inches of #8 crushed limestone as the base. As you can see we had a little rain before putting down the sand on top of the gravel, so I was able to use the water as in indicator of my low spots. I leveled the gravel and compacted it to have about 1/8 inch of slope away from the house per 4 linear ft.


4. We put in about 1 inch of sand to lay the stones on. We used the 1 inch pvc to screed the sand and keep it level with the gravel base.


5. Because we used natural stone for our patio, the next step was pretty tough. The stones were supposed to be about 1.5 inches thick, but because it was natural stone they ranged from about 1.5 inches to 2.25 inches thick. We had to constantly add and take away sand under the stones to get them as level as possible. It was also extremely difficult to piece the puzzle of stones together. We laid out each of our stones on the yard to pick from.


6. Finally, I used about 9.5 bags of stone grey gator dust to set the patio. I chose the gator dust over regular polymeric sand due to a few joints being wider than 2 inches. I felt like the gator dust would give me a little bit firmer joint between the stones.



Overall, this ended up being a much tougher project than I was expecting, but it's a pretty great feeling knowing that my dad and I were able to do it ourselves. Now I have one hell of a mess in my backyard and back porch to clean up, but overall I'd say it was worth it.