We are in the midst of a big backyard makeover. Lorne has been busting his butt for a couple of months now. Things are finally almost done. The huge old tree is gone, the yucky old patio and the pathway to nowhere are gone, the yard has been properly graded so that water flows away from our house, and the biggest thing of all is the brand new, gorgeous patio is done.

One of the things that made me fall in love with this house last year when we bought it was the backyard. It is huge, and shaded by gorgeous mature trees. I had grand visions of beautiful gardens and dinners outside on a new patio. The backyard was everything I was looking for, once we did a little work of course.

Before

Last summer, right after moving in, we got down to business working on the backyard. The first order of business was getting rid of the ridiculously large amount of pesky ivy growing in all the flower beds and up a huge elm tree. It took months of hard, like really hard, work but I eventually got it all pulled out. I held my breath to see if it would return in the spring and I would have more work to do. Luckily, I am, apparently, a badass ivy remover because none of it came back!!

So, with the ivy gone we had to decide what to tackle this year. We knew one of the main things we wanted to be able to do in our backyard was sit out on a nice patio and eat dinner, have a few drinks, watch the kids play, etc. So, that meant doing something about the old, falling apart, unusable existing patio. After much research and deliberation we settled on putting in a new stone paver patio. It would require a lot of work, mostly on Lorne’s part, but we (or rather he) was up for the task.

First things first the large elm right out our back door was removed along with a ton of roots. Next Lorne rented a jackhammer and removed the weird little pathway to nowhere that started at the patio and headed part way into the yard. Followed, of course, by removing the existing patio (thank goodness for craigslist and people willing to do work for free stone pavers!). Once all that was done the next order of business was getting the yard ready for the new patio. That involved hiring a guy with a bobcat and getting the area for the patio dug out and a huge portion of the yard graded. Our backyard was such a mess, it was so hard to keep the vision of why we were doing this and that one day it would look nice again.

Midway Through

Once everything was pulled out and our backyard was at its worst it was finally time for the new patio. We picked out our stones, had them delivered and Lorne and our lawn guy who he hired to help out set down to business. 3 full days of work later and the patio was in place. It is gorgeous!

After

There is still work to do. Lorne is busy right now filling the dirt around the patio and throughout the area of the yard that was dug up for the grading. And, of course, next spring we’ll be very busy putting in the garden beds around the patio. But, we’ve already eaten dinner outside on the new patio a few times and enjoyed sitting outside just enjoying our backyard space. The new patio is exactly what I had envisioned and once the gardens are in place next spring the backyard will be a perfect replica of what I envisioned the first time I saw the house and started picturing myself living here.