When we first moved into the house, there was a small garden surrounded by railroad ties in front of the kitchen window. It is always shady so my mum and I filled it with impatients and it was very nice, until the deer ate them all. Then the wasps invaded and Mike had to remove some of the wood that was serving as a nest for the millions of wasps. We were all stung (even Collette and Posey) at some point. Then came the dogs, who dug up the entire space and we also lost a lot of grass in that area. Every time I sweep, I must gather a bucket full of dirt that travels in the house in the paws and fur of the animals.
So it was time to fix the problem. Last summer, we bought Tuscan paving stone and procrastinated a whole year getting the job done. I know this because the Corolla transported the stone home.
The day began with Mike renting the tamper from Home Depot at 6:45 in the morning. We had already gotten 10 bags of paving base and 5 bags of paving sand the night before. We thought that would be about half of the amount needed. (I misremembered and thought we were laying about 30 square feet of paving stone, but really we were laying 60 square feet). So we (I) underestimated by half, and that coupled with digging too deep, we need A LOT more paving base and sand. After 3 more trips to Home Depot (one to buy a wheelbarrow - oops) and then a final one to return the tamper, we purchased 34 bags of paver base and 24 bags of paver sand at $ 3.49 each. The hauling of this dirt was way worse than the price (not sure how Mike feels about that). That's moving 58 heavy bags from a shelf to a cart, from a cart to the car, from the car to the backyard, and then to empty it onto the space. And then Mike moved all 60 stones from the driveway to the backyard while I laid them. The tamper was so heavy, I was unable to help Mike lift it into the car. We were sore and exhausted by the end of the day... and we can't forget the digging for the first half of the day.
The first step, other than buying all the supplies, was digging the space. This was not easy because it was like concrete in some areas. We kept measuring the depth with the goal of digging 6 inches in depth. Then we spread 3 inches of paver base and tamped it, then 2 inches of sand and tamped. We worked on leveling when we laid the stones, remembering to keep somewhat of a slope away from the house.
We didn't want to cut the stone and there wasn't enough width for 11 across, so I centered the stones with the kitchen window and we put pea gravel around the border. We also filled the cracks with sand to serve as a dry grout.
I learned that I can drive myself crazy trying to keep it all level and perfect, and it is far from that. We'll see how it all settles. But, for now, we like the way it looks and the animals love it.
