How to build your own patio

This is just the start of our patio journey. We moved into our new house Christmas of 2010.  We waited to build our patio in order to let the ground settle with the freezing and thawing of an Iowa winter and spring.  BUT, we also wanted to wait because we had NO idea what we wanted to do.  We went back and forth with cement, stamped cement, cut cement, pavers, edged pavers, stone walls, no walls, we JUST. DIDN'T. KNOW!! Ahhhh!

Flash forward to spring of 2012. We contacted some landscape designers to draw up some plans that included a fire pit, pergola, patio space and grill space with landscaping. We felt that each of the two landscape designers didn't fulfill what we were looking for.

So, back to the drawing board we went, literally. We drew the outline of our house (from our house plans), made copies and started drawing with a pencil and ruler. We drew for DAYS and just couldn't get it exactly how we wanted.

Finally, Josh went into the garage and got some scrap wood to visually layout the patio, forget the paper.  Hurray!  Here is our patio and we love the layout. Can't you just visualize it?

Patio looking north west

Our next step is to trench the downspout.  Can you see the downspout going directly onto the patio?  Shoot, we've got to move that?  Really?

Let the trenching begin!
{See our post about: How to trench a downspout}
{How to build a patio: part 2}
{How to build a pergola} 
{How to build a patio: part 3} 
{How to build a patio: part 4}

Stay tuned!