Show #46/3407
Finishing Touches For An Outdoor Living Space

Dressing Up A Concrete Patio

Eric spends some more time with Joel, the landscape contractor. Joel's job is to take Doug's plans and bring them to life. One of the most dramatic changes has been the beautiful paver patio. Joel takes us back to the beginning. This was an unusual situation. There was an existing slab. It was a somewhat unsightly concrete slab and it had settled some, it was not really level. The foundation now looks level to Eric. Joel and crew did level it off. First they started by building a kind of fake wall by taking some of the edging pavers that were used in the yard. They used them to face the concrete slab, then on top added a cap and made sure the cap was completely level. At that point they had a level surface allowing them to drag their board across the sand on top of the concrete enabling them to set the pavers in a perfectly level environment. Joel's group used beautiful earth tone pavers which is a bit of a departure from traditional red brick pavers. Joel likes these pavers because they have a kind of natural stone look, their top is textured and the color and style matches the decks quite nicely. They almost look like real stone. Eric likes the natural look, it certainly goes with the new plants. Joel tells us how they were laid, it's an informal pattern. Joel instructed his guys to not make any crosses, he didn't want 4 corners of the pavers to come together, in an attempt to break up the linear lines. There are gaps between each paver and Eric assumes that when walking on them there would be movement. That's true but Joel will lock them into place with a polymeric sand. They just sweep it into the joints, hit the stones with a plate compactor, get it wet and the polymeric sand will dry almost like concrete. The plate compactor vibrates ensuring there are no gaps in the sand. Once done it will be one solid patio. It already looks fantastic, Eric can't wait to see it when completed.