Peter Piper Paved a Patio

So while Matt and Sam spent like a hundred hours and hundreds of dollars and hundreds of curse words on horse shoe pits seen in the previous post (scroll down, forgetful readers), I also made a contribution to an under (never) used area of the backyard which is right beneath the dining room window. I (as usual) do not have a before photo, but picture old muddy mulch where the landscaping fabric is in this photo:

Useless, ugly space.

The area becomes a mini pool after just a few minutes of rain, and takes forever to dry out because it is heavily shaded by the oak trees. The previous owners appeared to just keep shoveling mulch onto it year after year, with no barrier to keep the dirt separate from the mulch.

I took landscape fabric that I bought at the Holla Fo' a Dolla store (it's a Dollar General store, but if I owned a dollar store, that would be the name. No regrets.) for .....you guessed it: $1.00 a roll. Super score compared to Lowe's or Home Depot who charge $12-$18 per roll. IT'S THE EXACT SAME THING, GUYS. I did buy a box of the staples that hold it in place at Lowe's, though. That took maybe 10-15minutes to lay down after clearing the old mulch ( which I did with my arms and legs since Matt and Sam had all the tools for the horse shoe pits....I looked like a frog swimming in disgusting swamp water).

Next I put down my "table" which is actually and industrial sized wooden spool I found on Craiglist for free. It was a pain in the buns to cart over to the house, but I knew it would be worth it.

I am FREEEEEEEE......

I also found these chairs on the side of the road:

You win the "Uggo" Contest, friend.

 So I refinished all the seats and left the legs and the back(of the two that still had backs) with their weathered look.

Next it was time for edging, which Matt and Sam did once the horseshoe pits were done, and then 30 or so bags of pea gravel later here we are:

The pavers were at the house stacked near the bbq pad when we arrived, so also free. The will be stained someday for contrast.

I oiled the spool to bring out the rustic charm. Can't get over how well it came out!

 So there you have it; a walkway from our fabulous deck over to a patio dining area from scratch and all for under $200. All there is left to do is plant something colorful in the pallet hung over the fence in the back and get some sort of lighting for that area...maybe market lights, but for now the lights from the breakfast nook and dining room give it a nice ambient glow. And should we have bags of money lying around someday and want to upgrade the material to some sort of paver, the gravel can just be compacted down as a drainage layer, so it will never be a wasted material.

Whole project took maybe 3 hours spread out over a few days since there were extra trips to Lowe's and we were hopping back and forth from this to the horseshoe project.

If you don't have this amount of space to work with for a patio, or don't have the love/hate relationship with being a home owner, here is a link to a smaller scale patio makeover that The Vintage Project did. :)

Off to make a reclaimed wood wall/ drink a beer on my new patio and stare at the wood pile that will become a reclaimed wood wall.....