Spring is in the air. The warm weather is calling us to come sit outside and enjoy the sunshine. Now that our dogs are on the neighborhood hit list "for the nosiest dogs in Providence", we have to supervise our pooches to keep all that barking in tow.So this week, we dusted off the patio furniture and began to think about how he have no patio to put them on. With the rotten economy, a summer filled with expenses (trips to England, Boy Scout camp, and Joshua's upcoming Bar Mitzvah), we are all in agreement that our plan for a deck will not be happening this year. Or even next.
Enter "Plan B". I got the idea for a small patio that might tide us over for a few years. I thought that we might be able to put in red brick patio using stones like we used to support our outdoor fire place. I talked to Devon about this idea on Sunday and he told me to go ahead and figure out what the dimensions of the "small patio" would suit my needs. The idea was to see if we could keep it to a minimum of say about 8 x 8 feet.
Yesterday, the boys and I spent the afternoon, measuring out an 8 x 8 section in the yard. Whatever size we decide upon needs to be able to at least support a table and four chairs. If we could also add in an area for the fireplace... that would be ideal.
After marking the area, we then tried our "mock patio" in several different areas of the yard. Finally after trying out 3 separate places, we decided on the area that is closest to the house, so that we don't have to walk through the grass to get to it, and, so we have as much privacy from our neighbours. (We're already annoying people with our barking dogs, so we'd don't want to add our noisy fireside conversations to the list.)
When Devon came home from work, he agreed that we had chosen the best location in the yard. In addition, he thought the patio should be doubled in size (8 x16) to allow enough space for our outdoor fireplace.
Our only question now, is whether we build the patio using the red bricks (as originally planned), or should we just put in a small deck using wood/trex. Devon and I are both thinking that "Plan B" might be all we really need. Plus, this way we don't have to deal with ripping out our kitchen window and putting in a new door.
We still want to keep our costs down, so expense is still a factor to be considered. However, we also would like to complete the job with as little amount of work as possible. Not having ever built a patio before, we are not sure how much work will be invovled. We are assuming we might have to dig down several inches and pour a layer of gravel and then sand.
