give your patio a quick, cheap facelift!

looks great, need to do something with mine now that summer is on the way.

 

That looks great - my pool area needs to be redone in the next month. Is there an illustrated step by step somewhere? I'm entirely too stupid to follow your directions. Thanks.

RMX

 

only thing missing is a pile of dog ****.

 

My sister's pool deck surround was done this way in a faux brick. Looked better than the real thing.

 

Thats because you haven't seen the real thing done right, yet...

 

aka Zippy-da-doo-dah!

 

Pete: Major thumbs up x 4

1. Energy to do project.

2. Skill to pull it off.

3. End result looks great.

4. Kindness to post it for us!

 

Watched the videos on their site, thanks.

I honestly think my pool area is too big to do this on my own - it also has these 1.5" wide drain strips in places and I don't think faux flagstone would look very good being "broken up" by these strips. Does this stuff go on real thick? Dunno - this is definitely not a weekend project considering the amount of work that needs to be done to achieve that look. I'd need 3 or 4 days at least.

My concrete patio/pool deck is probably 20 x 40 or so.

RMX

 

not bad, but for large areas I'd suggest using the real thing. I'm in the middle of putting down 18tons of flagstone, by myself! each piece is about 150~200 #lbs each and measures roughly 33"x55"x2". it's set on a bed of 3/4 crush 2" deep and then DG (decomposed granite) also 2" thick.

I also take the award for the longest running backyard project...don't ask.
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Nice stuff Scott. I've put that sort of stuff down at a friend's place before. Easy to work with.

But I have to give Kudos to Peter... simple idea that came out very good.

 

It's looking good Scott.

I'm not sure about the award for longest running project since I'm not done with mine yet either, but it does look like I might be closer to finished at point.....and finished just can't come soon enough......

The cut travertine pavers go pretty fast and easy. I did 6" min of compacted 2a modified and about 3/4" of sand.
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nice lookin back yard

 

I like his basement better :O

 

agreed, Peter did a great job and it looks 100% better than just plain concrete.

oddly I was going to do flagstone when I started but costs got in the way so then I was going to do stamped concrete, but the cost of concrete had exceeded the cost of using real stone by the time I got around to it.

 

I am doing something similar in my backyard now but my contractor put down 3 inches of concrete before puting down the stone. Could I have gotten away with just sand? He tried to tell me it will shift and dip in areas. Is this BS to spend a ****load more than I had to?

 

That's what I found as well....as look as the installation labor is free anyway. I bought and installed the travertine for less than the cost of having plain concrete installed for me. We were thinking plain concrete then I was going to try to stain it to sort of look like stone, but it just didn't make any sense once I found that real stone was cheaper.

What are you going to put between the stones, more DG? grass?

 

Thanks...it was a TON of work!

The fence material was about $5500 for everything including cement and renting an auger. It took me 2 week ends to do I think to install. Vinylfence.com

The grill itself was around $600 at Lowes, $150 for the side burner, $50 for doors to put below the grill. Maybe $100 for block and mortar. The material for all the counter/bar top was $375 and my bother (who actually knew what he was doing and was in town that week) and I cut it on sight. The most expensive part was the beer fridge at $850 and Lana still busts my chops about that $850 almost every time I reach for a beer.

I think the grant total for the whole project including the pool, all the wall, patio, stairs, plants, grading, ect. with me doing all the work except the pool itself was under $80k….way more than we planned to spend (long story about an elaborate design concept from the FIRED landscape architect who clearly had no concept about budgets), but it’s coming out nice. I just need to get the stucco on the block walls and a rear walkway then I can really enjoy the $850 beer fridge.

 

They like to put concrete around the pool becasue it's really hard to get everything compacted good after they dig to install the pipes and wires. I dug out all the loose dirt and then it sit almost a year while I built the walls, then ran the compactor all day before I called it ready to spread the sand and lay stone. I did the stone around the pool this time last year and it still looks exactly like it did when I did it, so I'm thinking it's good. The worst that will happen is I need to lift a few stons and throug in some more sand I guess if something sinks. The advantage is that if anything goes wrong with the pool plumbing it's pretty easy to pull up the stone to get to it, but hopefully that day will never come.

Away from the pool there is no reason in the world I can think of to put concrete under the stone. Scott, any thoughts?