Back Yard Patio

Like most things, it all started with a plan. Well actually, it started with my own plan which was then taken over by a professional. We wanted a patio for our backyard off the kitchen door. We have a deck but it is through the house which is fine except when the family wants to eat dinner out there most every night in the summer and you have to lug all the food, plates, napkins, and all through the house and dirty stuff back. The space outside the kitchen was yard. We decided we wanted a "brick" patio back there and also incorporate some kind of seat wall (you can never have too many places to sit while entertaining). From there I somehow got it stuck in my head that we also "needed" a fire pit. We found a Unilock product called Brussels Block and we liked the look of it. My first (fleeting) inclination was to do the job myself. That lasted about 10 minutes. I got prices on the block anyway and found it to be about $4.75 [sq/ft]. Then I got prices on the going rate for it installed... about $12 - $14 [sq/ft]... OK, back to doing it myself. No wait, I have 5,000 other things to finish on this house and laying a patio is about the last thing I want to take on... back to having someone do it. 

I drew plans on CAD to send out for quote. The immediate problem was the seat wall. No matter how you stack it (pun intended) the Unilock walls look industrial. They also have all kinds of problems (in my opinion) with ending them nicely. You always seem to have to break and cap various pieces to make an "attractive" end. I think the problem is most of the walls are used for earth retaining so the ends usually taper into the ground. Problem number two was the fire pit. Unilock had some basic plans on the website (actually Autocad files you can download) but they were crude at best. I got a quote for my plan and found I was looking at $10,000. Yikes... how did that happen? If the price wasn't bad enough, we still really weren't happy with the design; it had a seat wall with no real elegant ends and a sort-of fire pit.

While searching the web for fire pit ideas we came across a nursery that had amazing examples of patios, pools, fireplaces, walls and just about anything else imaginable made out of stone and... they were local. We had actually found them a month or so earlier but dismissed them as too high end for our budget. So here we are $10k into the project and figured it wouldn't hurt to have them take a look at the job. The nursery is Steck's and they came out and talked to us. Well actually, they did one better, they came up with a plan and proposed it to us (no obligation). We loved it! The next thing you know what started out as an overpriced $10k back patio was now $13k... oh well. The plan he sketched up is shown on the right. The job also included a small patio off the front porch with a bluestone step. The sunken fire pit was proposed with a lip so we could put a grate in when not in use to effectively increase the area of the patio. The seat wall was natural fieldstone to match stone work we have out front.

Was the job effortless since I had someone else do it? I wish I could say yes. Was it handled well since I went to a "high end" contractor? I again wish I could say yes. Were we happy in the end? Absolutely! A few of the lessons we learned I'll pass on in hopes of saving others the headaches:

1. Get EVERYTHING in writing. We trusted many of the design elements to our contact at Steck's... who quit a couple days after we signed the contract. Now we have a pile of block in the yard than the poor guy picking up the project has no idea about the patio pattern, the wall design,... all he had was the sketch you see. Get in writing the block weave pattern, edging treatments, wall heights, pit depths, joint styles, step design...

2. If you get a fire pit, make sure the company knows how to vent it. We have two vents that run from under the pit (which is filled with about 2' of trapp rock) and go out the back of the wall where they are capped. They allow some air to get up under the fire.

3. Talk about and understand joint sizes and grouting on a stone wall. We had some problems in this area and they actually re-pointed the tops of the walls because we were not happy. In our defense, the root problem was they ran out of stones and the joint lines got real w-i-d-e on top when they tried to stretch the material they had on site. In fairness to Steck's, they made sure we were happy and had no problem redoing the wall's top layer.

Overall this was a great project. We use the patio almost every night during the spring, summer and fall. We had fires through all but the worst of the hot summer nights. The space is right off the kitchen so the dinner setup was easy. The only problem is now we never use the back deck. Hmmm... I'm thinking ripping it down and making a screened in porch (three or four season room). Keep posted... will this madness of remodeling never end?