Home projects are my favorite – I love taking our inspiration and turning it into reality…especially when we can do it on our own inexpensively! At any given moment, I have 10454549 things I’d love to do around the house, but with summertime just around the corner (or is it already here? Let’s settle this Memorial Day vs. June 21st debate), we’ve been primarily focusing on the exterior of our house and the yard.
We have a really nice sized backyard but we’re still working on getting the grass to grow (and getting rid of weeds!), and there’s a spot in the yard right off our covered concrete patio that gets so muddy whenever it rains, causing all of us to track our dirty feet into the kitchen when we go inside. We also have had a brand new outdoor pizza oven in our garage since last year (thanks, Mom & Dad!) and haven’t set it up yet, since we hadn’t spent much time focusing on getting the backyard ready.
While at Lowe’s looking for flowers, we found some basic patio pavers on sale but didn’t love how plain they were – but also didn’t want to pay an arm and a leg for the expensive stamped concrete pavers. I went home and started researching inexpensive DIY patio ideas and found an idea I really loved – and the best part is, it only required those cheap square pavers and some pea gravel. We ended up spending around $120 to build a 14′ x 7′ patio area, which was way less than it would’ve cost to buy the fancy stamped pavers. Admittedly, the patio will probably never look neat and clean because the girls are obsessed with picking up the little pebbles and playing with them, but not having to deal with muddy feet has been such a lifesaver!
How We Built a DIY Patio
First, my husband dug several inches to remove the top surface of grass and to smooth the dirt before placing the pavers. This actually took a while and was pretty tiring, at least that’s what he told me 😉 Meanwhile, I lugged the heavy pavers and bags of pebbles into the backyard using the kids’ wagon…and then he finished up the other half of that when I quit. 🙂
To create even spaces between the pavers, we used several pieces of lumber we had in the garage. FYI, I know you can grab scrab lumber from Lowe’s for free, if you don’t have any laying around at home.
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Once all of the pavers were laid, we (I mean my husband) poured the bags of pebbles in the spaces between the pavers. He used a shovel to move it around to fill all of the spaces and then followed behind with a broom to move the rest of the rocks off the pavers. Lastly, we rinsed the patio with the water hose to remove the dirt and dust that were on the pavers and rocks. Super simple!
Pavers we used:Â Gray 12×12 Pavers
Rocks we used:Â Pea Gravel
For a 14′ x 7′ area, we ended up using 72 square pavers and 12 bags of pea gravel. The grand total was $119.
If you’re looking for an easy and inexpensive way to revamp your outdoor space, consider this DIY patio idea. A little sweat equity will pay off in a big way with this cost-effective project!
For more outdoor ideas, be sure to follow me on Pinterest.
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