My Creative Blog:
Patio

As you all know, my hubs and I have been DIYing a 600 square foot patio. It's been a huge job, but it's 99% done and we're loving it! (We've even put on an addition, but our lights were back ordered so I can't give the full reveal yet-boo!)

600 square feet is a lot of space to fill and I wasn't about to go out and buy all new furniture for the space. I've had this old record player hutch (if that's even such a thing) in my basement for about 7 years now- It was just waiting to be upcycled.

This baby used to house my in-laws old record player and then eventually a boombox. It's crazy to think that now that all of my music is on a 4 inch iPhone. Anyhow, if you need any convincing that this piece needed some upcycling, I've provided you with some evidence…

One of my favorite things to do, is to look at a piece of furniture and see past the"yuck" and into the potential it has. Remember when we upcycled this dresser into an Anthro Knock off.

They key to a good furniture upcycle is to believe that anything can be changed and set some goals!

To Upcycle this piece, I had a few goals:
#1- Get rid of any and all scrolly things (I sorta loathe them)
#2- Remove the speaker fabric
#3- Paint it with outdoor paint
#4- Add some bold details
#5- Distress it (so I don't get mad when one of my 4 kids"distress" it for me)
#6- Add new hardware

Get Rid of Scrolly Things Sometimes it's easy to think there are things you can't change about a piece, but it's amazing what you can do with a jigsaw! I just taped off a straight line and cut those scrolly babies off!

Remove Speaker Fabric
I ripped off all of the lovely fabric and then had to take out the speakers. There was no magic to this step. I actually gave a hammer to my seven year old son and said,"bang away!"

I love when furniture has an industrial flair, so I cut plywood panels and covered them with chicken wire. It isn't the most fun to work with, but it's not impossible either.

Paint with Outdoor Paint
This piece was originally intended to be used indoors, so I wanted to be sure to paint it with good quality outdoor paint. I really don't love taking tons of time painting furniture, so I used Valspar's Exterior Spray Paint. It took about 3 cans to do two coats on the whole piece.

Add Bold Details
Since this piece was originally so traditional, I wanted to do something graphic and more modern as a detail. I thought a thin herringbone would do the trick.

Herringbone is super-simple!
#1- Mark out your center line. Then, measure the width you want the stripes (I used 1") and make tick marks down both sides of the column. #2- Tape off your lines. The top of the left side slants down to one tick mark below on the right. #3- Paint & Remove your tape. Let it dry and repeat on the opposite side, but shift your painted section down one, so you have the"every other" look.

Distress the Piece
You might notice that my lines weren't completely crisp in the herringbone. I was painting outside in 100 degree heat (blogger foul), but I also knew I was going to distress it anyhow. I'm not always into distressing, but I figured it was going to get banged up outside (and I have 4 kids that are pretty rough on furniture).
To distress, first I went at it with a sander with 220 grit paper.

Have you ever had this problem? I ran out of the right size sanding pads. Oops!
After sanding it down a bit, I gave the entire piece a good glazing. I actually began my glazing love affair by reading Living with Lindsay's blog (check her out it you haven't)!
My favorite glaze is Martha's Black Coffee. As you can see, I slopped it on, rubbed it around, and then wiped it off. I wanted pretty solid coverage, so I used a good bit of glaze.

After adding some hardware she was all finished and ready for the patio!

I think she's much more my style now!

All that's missing now is some cool, outdoor artwork. I'd love to hear any ideas you have in a comment. We have some insanely creative readers! P.S. I have to mention that I'm so glad to have my BFF home from vacation! A week apart feels like such a long time to us! Now that she's home, Jess is working like a mad-woman on some cool projects for her dining room!!

If you're new around here, let me catch you up a bit… We're partnering with Stone Depot and EP Henry and building a patio DIY style-we're crazy and we know it…(sing to the tune of LMFAO). You can catch up on the progress posts here, here, and here.

So, here's where we were when we left off last week…

We had finished the base wall and we could finally move onto the patio pavers and the sitting wall. Speaking of the sitting wall…Take a look at that beauty! We're waiting on a few more wall blocks to be in stock and then it will be finished.

Okay, so after the base wall was done it was time to get moving on the patio itself. This post is going to be chock full of DIY Patio tips, because we learned a lot along the way! We laid down the geofabric and then we needed to fill the entire patio with stone.

See all that stone? Well, multiply it times four! We needed over 35 TONS of stone and yes, we carried it one wheelbarrow at a time.

I had thought Eric dropped a pile of stone on the grass and the wall, until he explained this little trick. Worked like a charm!

When you need to work on a patio for 5 weeks and you have to move 35 tons of stone, it's important to have help…

This picture gives you an idea of what the stone was used for. We needed to apply it two inches at a time, run the tamp, and repeat until we raised it up the 20ish inches that we needed.

This is more than a tip, it's a must. There's no way a patio of this size can be done by hand. Time for the heavy equipment!

The stone needed to be 3" below the height of the wall caps. That's tricky to do everywhere, but there's a trick that works really well… although it is tedious!
(**Please ignore the spelling error below! I do know how to spell achieve. Thanks!**)

I also should mention that we had to be creative with ways to entertain the kids while we spent so many hours working… The"tractor"-waterfall-rides were a huge hit. Let me just tell you that never in my life did I imagine I'd own anything made by John Deere and I especially didn't foresee having kids that love driving it around the yard! lol

Alright, back to business. I thought this was a great idea and it helped keep all the leveled stone in place while we moved to the sand.

Leveling the sand it a two person job, but it was quick and easy using this pro method. You lay down 1 inch pipes, fill the area with sand, drag a leveled board across the pipes, and it smoothly levels the area between the pipes.

Look at that smooth sand! Nice work boys! (and yes, I still refer to my hubs as a boy even after 10yrs of marriage)

After the sand, it was the moment we'd all been waiting for and I was ready with camera in hand!

I'll be back next week with our final update before the grand reveal, but until then, I need some help in the lighting department. I plan to have two lights flanking the door and then I need four pillar lights as well. I definitely want an industrial feel. So, can you help a sister out and leave any recommendations in the comments? THANKS!

Wondering about the flowers on the steps? They're wildflowers that my kiddos had picked for me as a surprise when I got home from the Haven Conference. I'm a lucky gal.

The patio is so close to being finished, I can almost taste it (or perhaps that's just the black lung from all the stone and dust!) Can't wait to show you the finished product!

P.S. If you missed our Haven Conference Recap you can check it out HERE- it was awesome!

Last week I introduced you to the huge DIY patio project we're in the midst of. (If you missed the intro post, you can check it out HERE.) Well, the past week has been full of lots of and lots of hard work, but we've made some awesome progress!

Although my mind is completely preoccupied with planning our first patio party, and all the fun accessorizing DIYs I can't wait to get started on, I had to stick to the Patio Plan and stay focused! Our last post ended with us beginning to measure and plan. Here's what we've accomplished since then!

Step # 3- Measure & Plan Now, we already had our plan on paper and even roughly spray painted on the grass, but now it was time for the dreaded exact numbers. Now, I'll admit, my hubs is one smart guy (remember, Chemist by day, DIYer by night?) but we called in the big guns for this one. Meet Mark & Connie (you might remember their guest room??)

Well these two love math and nerdy stuff, so we said hey come over for dinner and help us do patio math. They couldn't resist the offer. I'm not going to give you all the exact equations etc (because I don't understand them) but I'll just emphasize that the math does matter.
We used string tied on to rebar to get straight lines.

We marked, measured, did little intersection things etc.

Then it was time to DIG! I helped with this part (some of it at least). Eric used the pickaxe and I'll shovel in the wheelbarrow and dump. Fun Times, let me tell ya.

We've had a TON of rain lately and we live in ROCKhill Township, so it took a while to get the entire thing dug. I loved seeing the outline begin to take shape!

While we were digging, look what arrived from Stone Depot and EP Henry?

We didn't have time to waste, so we were on to Step #4- Remove the Patio Grass Nothing fancy to this part, just dig away at the grass and haul it into the woods. By this point Eric was still okay with me saying,"Wait! Pose! Let me take a picture!" Not so much anymore! I knew it would ware off eventually!

Another Delivery! This is the 3/4 Modified stone that goes down first.

Step # 5- Build Boarder Wall The first part to building the wall was filling in the trench we just dug! WHAT??!! I was totally not cool with this at first. It seemed like a waste, but the wall needs a solid foundation. We filled the trench with stone, raked it, and tamped. What Eric is using is a tamp. You just bang it really hard over and over and over. Again, fun times!

My job was to bring load after load after load of stone. It was a good upper body workout!

Oops! Step # 4.5- Run Electrical Wires We almost forgot about this step. We're adding lights on the sitting wall, and four pillar lights. Eric did all the electrical himself because he's experienced in this area, but if you're a rookie, call in a pro to help.

Finally we were ready to lay some pavers! These were the first ones and I can't tell you how excited I was when they went in!

There are some definite DIY tips and tricks we've learned about building a wall, so we'll be back next week with a post chock-full of helpful tips! So, how are we doing so far? Any guesses on how long this DIY is going to take us?

I'm so excited to introduce you to one of our biggest DIY Projects ever! Over the next weeks we're going to be taking you step-by-step through our DIY Patio Project. I was thrilled when Stone Depot and EP Henry decided to partner with us on this crazy adventure.

So, here's the plan, each week I'll be giving you an update with info and tips on what we've completed. You're going to be amazed at how do-able this DIY really is (just LOTS and LOTS of work- husbands, please don't send me hate mail!) and don't worry, for those of you that definitely don't want to tackle this as a DIY, I'll hook you up with the pros at Stone Depot and they can help you out.
I'm way impulsive, so for a Big-Mama DIY, I needed a plan to keep me focused and doing things in the right order (or I would drive my hubs nuts!)

Step #1- Plan Patio Layout This was honestly very, very tricky. I learned a few things… As I planned, my patio mysteriously got BIGGER and BIGGER and planning is not as easy as I thought it would be. I had a few requirements 1- A large space for a BIG Dining Table (I feel another DIY table coming soon!) and 2- An area for a fire pit and sitting. Here was brainstorm number one… Now, remember I'm NOT an artist or a landscape designer. This looked pretty on paper, but having an opening for stairs off the patio only about 3 feet away from the opening for the walkway was weird.

Brainstorm Number Two looked like this… Still had the weird stairs/walkway combo and I also added a bump out area. Why you ask? Well, I love sitting in the sun! The way the sun crosses our house, that little area would have sun 24-7 (Well, not really, but you get the idea). Eventually I talked myself out of that because it was weird and made me seem a tad vain (enter the Carly Simon music).

The Final Plan is different than both of our initial ideas, but it's clean, simple, and big enough for all my requirements!

Now, it looks kind of small in these pictures, but it's about 600sq/ft and will be perfect for parties and lots of outdoor fun.
DIY PATIO TIP: Use leftover spray paint to draw out your design on the grass to make sure it's what you really want. I had about 7 colors going on at one point.

Step #2- Choose EP Henry Stone from Stone Depot Once we had our plan, we headed off to Stone Depot in Perkasie. They have a HUGE selection and their guys know their stuff! We were able to walk around outside and see actual patios and samples of each of the different paver options and colors.

Here's what we picked! Bristol Stone in Blue Spruce. I think the color will go really well with our house.

Here's a better picture, but in a different color. We're going to have sitting wall, like this, along the back and we're going to add fun lighting too!

I love how the stone sizes are varied and I like that they're larger than traditional pavers. At our old house we had Old Town Cobble, which is nice, but the Bristol Stone has a more contemporary feel to me.
The next step is measuring and planning outside the house. Here's a picture to give you a general idea. Next week I'll give you all of our tips for the measuring, trust me we learned a thing or two along the way! DIYing with my hubby is a tad different than DIYing with Jess! HA!

So be honest, are we CRAZY for taking on this DIY? Any tips or advice?