Laying a patio: Laying bricks is the easy part

The beautiful thing about laying your own patio is you get to literally touch every brick that goes into the ground. I think we touched each brick 3 times. From moving the bricks into the trailer, then into a wheel barrow to get from the front yard to the backyard, and then from the wheel barrow to the ground. Gloves were the most vital tool for this job. This is the final post for a 4 part series to get to patio bliss.










For a recap we have purchased pavers Laying a Patio: Craigslist Pavers and made a level perimeter  Laying a patio: Why do we need a retaining wall? then dug dirt and made a screed to level red breeze and sand in Laying a patio: I was not made to dig. Now we can lay...

At some point we decided on our pattern. We went with a simple one - not wanting to complicate this already complicated and drawn out process.

Remember we first had to put sand down and screed it to make everything level. Then we worked from top to bottom dropping in pavers one at a time. We had to be careful not to step on any pavers or the screeded area. 

We developed a fast and efficient assembly line. I got bricks from the barrow and placed them right in front of their intended spot. David moved down the line on his knees placing bricks and lightly hammering them into place. My job was to keep the supply up until we ran out. The part the slowed us down most was our trailer full of bricks was parked on the road in front of our house. So we had to load up 60 bricks at a time. Having to pause and reload our wheel barrow full of bricks slowed us down but was a good break from the fast paced assembly line we created.  

 

The bricks locked together so that once we were a few rows in the patio became solid. We were able to step on the previous rows without disturbing the screeded sand. We used a trowel to smooth out any spots that had excess sand or had been accidentally disturbed. Once we started laying it only took us 2 hours to complete laying the entire patio. It would have been faster if we had been able to hire some minions to bring all those bricks in from the trailer. 

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There are some final steps after this. We have to cut bricks for the end pieces and then pour and sweep joining sand all over to make those pavers unmoveable. I will share those little details later making this a 6 part series on building a patio. It wouldn't be ours if we hadn't left it a little undone. (That was my attempt at being ok with imperfection). For now lets just bask in the amazement of this beautiful patio built by brey. I think I just came up with our next business name. Our first order of business will be to set up the patio furniture and enjoy a bottle of summer wine. Looks like we are done just in time.