The first step with building a patio by yourself is to just forget that you don't know what you're doing and start digging a hole. The second step is to call up a bunch of your friends to see if they can help out. Plus, the extra man power comes in handy if somehow one of them decides to drive it up the dirt pile you've created and accidentally tips it over.

The Dingo, accompanied with a pickax, came in especially handy with excavating the main hole. It was a little expensive to have for the weekend, but the time it saved us with digging through clay and dumping the dirt made it more than worth it. After we staked off the rough outline, we dug down 8" (or more, or less in some areas) to get ready for the base layer. This, with four other guys took up most of Saturday. This was by far the toughest step of the project, and now it was time to move on to filling it up with gravel.



Since moving dirt around everywhere inside the hole, I had to re-dig the gutter trench again. This time wasn't too bad since I already made a dent earlier and I had some new tools to help me out. After laying out the tube and setting up my water basin to collect leaves from the gutters, everything was in place for the five tons of gravel currently killing my front lawn. The tarp was put down to let those weeds know they aren't welcome and away we went.

After taking three passes at shoveling the gravel into the wheelbarrow, pushing it to the backyard and then raking it into place, I realized that I needed some help. Christi came out to rake which saved me time, but didn't save my back on all of the hard labor. So AP was nice enough to come back over, in the pouring rain as it turned out, to swap on who pushed the wheelbarrow to the back. All in all, we dumped everything we needed and still have about a ton of gravel on the lawn. Thank goodness for working for a large company where you can send out a massive email and get responses in seconds for people wanting to take it away.

Now we are set to have sand delivered on Thursday as well as our awesome modern bluestone pavers. As long as I can figure out how to use a compactor and level everything away from my house, the wife and I might be enjoying the area well before people come over for the fourth.

Not sure how much a shout out on my blog is worth, but thanks many times over to AP, Will, Clancy and Dustin for their help this past weekend. There's no way I would be where I am today without them.