Free Estimate
This is a project near and dear to my heart. After my wife and I purchased our first home in Baltimore City, we were very excited to start making renovations. Obviously, we had to enhance the back yard! While there are many things that I would change about this project if I had to do it again, over all, I am very pleased with the patio installation and it still gets plenty of use to this day, over 5 years later.
We essentially started with a blank slate. We wanted to create an intimate area for spending time outside that fit the aesthetic of our 1928 brick home. Many homes on our street incorporate brick and masonry facades. Therefore, a natural stone patio had much allure. The pergola pictured is also new construction and built by us as well. The juxtaposition of the circular, organic patio to the triangular, geometric pergola is one of my favorite features. To get started on the patio, we excavated about 5 inches. This soil was very rocky and required multiple days of solo digging by hand.
After the patio foot print was excavated, gravel was used as the base material. The gravel was compacted and the stones were trimmed and set on top. Like I mentioned earlier, there are a few things that I would change about this patio installation. In hindsight I regret cutting corners by not installing a sand setting bed. In the future I hope to eventually correct this error. However, 5+ years later and the patio still functions just fine, so it is unlikely that I will remove all of the stones and install a setting bed any time soon.
Once all of the stones were fitted and laid, I back filled the joints with soil. Again, in hindsight I would have approached this differently. Our intention was to grow a ground cover between the stones. However, the gravel base allows water to flow freely through the soil on the top layer of the joints. This well draining, dry environment makes it nearly impossible for anything to grow in the patio joints. If I could go back in time, I would use a small trowel or screw driver to remove as much gravel as possible in between the stone joints. That would allow more soil to be packed into each joint and increase the chances of ground cover establishing.
All in all, my wife and I are very please with the final patio installation. It is incredibly rewarding to see the transformation from home purchase, concept, and final as built project. Furthermore, we get to maintain the garden around the patio and enjoy it frequently.