Yayyyy it’s done! Daddy’s little helper joined for the finishing touches.
This summer has been full of fun events and traveling but that meant that the progress with ripping out our rotted deck and putting in our new DIY patio has been slow. I’ll share the breakdown of the cost and some photos of the progress.
Why a new patio?
We would have been fine with our shabby wooden deck until a million bugs showed up. Our friends were renting our condo while we lived in Calgary for 6 months and they were killing bugs every day, especially after it rained. Bug spray helped but we didn’t want that to be a ritual every summer especially since Nora likes to put everything in her mouth (she recently ate an entire sticky note). Since we didn’t have many expenses while living in Calgary we were able to set aside $2,000 in our Capitol One 360 savings account (this account makes financial goals so easy to track). We didn’t know how much it would cost to replace the deck so we aimed high at $2,000. Our “backyard” is only 20’x16′ so it wasn’t too huge of a project.
Cost, resources, and labor
We borrowed tools from my parents like a wheel barrel, shovels, and saws. It was quite a labor intensive job and Dave probably put in 50 hours tearing up the patio, digging out dirt, hauling that dirt away, laying down the limestone and sand, leveling it all, and laying out the bricks. He often had a friend over to help and we cut costs by borrowing our neighbor’s truck to load the sand and limestone ourselves. We rented a Uhaul to get the bricks we bought off Craigslist. It took 3 guys 2.5 hours to load the bricks onto the Uhaul but then we had 9 guys help unload them in only 45 minutes! Since we didn’t spend the full $2,000 we decided to buy some patio furniture for under $100 and celebrate Dave’s hard work with a new bike for him to ride to and from work ($200). That left us with an extra $700 to go toward an extra payment on our mortgage! We are already excited for next summer so we can enjoy some good food with good friends on our new patio.
The cost breakdown
$303 for 1200 bricks we bought off cragislist
$169 Uhaul & gas to get bricks
$25 stakes, string, PVC
$36 garden bed mesh
$216 crushed limestone (didn’t use 100% of it)
$52 slag sand
$128 more sand, edging, etc.
Total cost: $929
Now for the progress pictures. I couldn’t find a “before” picture with all the rotted wood besides this one when we were renovating our kitchen:
There was a LOT of prepwork involved: removing shrubs, a rotted stump, a huge rock, and some 4″x4″ posts that had cement poured around them.
The garden mesh was pinned down and then we compacted 4 yards of limestone on top. Once this step was complete we could tamp a layer of sand and start laying bricks.
What DIY projects have you done before?
Budget For Health - Food, Fitness, & Finance from a Registered Dietitian
