Patio Progress

There are a lot of pictures, so BEWARE! There are also many pictures of all the guys just standing around, but they really did work very hard. Thank you to everyone that helped this past weekend, I'm pretty sure I would probably be 50 by the time this project was complete without all of the help! We love you and we are so grateful to have so many wonderful friends and family. We owe you all.

The pavers came on this huge semi truck.....unfortunately Luke was asleep, he would have loved it.

Unloading

This was when we realized this was going to be a huge project. We were actually quite scared...too late to back out of now.
The backyard before....Matt already had ripped down the deck.

Side yard with all the ugliness.

Day One: Thank God for Matt's cousin Tim! He was able to come with his tractor, but I think he was secretly excited to be able to use it so much. He saved the boys A LOT of labor.

Digging out the grass.

Side yard path.

Luke was so excited to have a real tractor in his yard. Tim was quite impressive on it, he hauled 15 yards of gravel, 5 yards of sand and most of the pavers to the backyard. Could you imagine doing all that digging and transporting all the materials by wheelbarrow?

Spreading the gravel.

Compacting the gravel.

Day Two: Getting the game plan

I didn't get any pictures throughout the day, but here's what it looked like by the end of the day. Stairs from the front porch and the side yard path.

This is the outline of the stairs coming off the back door. This is one complete pattern completed, so now Matt will just have to complete the pattern many times.

There is still a lot of work to be done, apparently once all the pavers are in place they will have to cover them with sand, compact them all again to make them even, and finally seal the stone. I'll keep you posted with updates! Good luck Matt!! I told him I will help when Luke is sleeping.