I couldn't pass up the chance to get outside so I spent the day working on a backyard patio at our new place. The area was covered in vines, leaves, and trash before I began so it took a good amount of time to get everything cleaned up and ready.
I had a budget of $0 for this project. Ok, I didn't do it all for free. I had to spend $40 on the patio furniture (craigslist), a few bucks on the planting pots (thrift store), and about $10 on potting soil from Home Depot. Everything else was free.
I got the bricks from a guy not to far from us (via craigslist) who was tearing up his patio to build a wood deck. The soil in the backyard is a thick red clay that worked well to fill in the cracks as mortar. The concrete pavers were buried in the backyard under mud and leaves. A little cleaning up and they made a nice border and walking stones.
Amy and I bought a ton of seeds to plant so I decided to build a raised planting bed (the idea courtesy of our gracious Irish hosts Alfie and Margaret). I used a wood pallet from home depot that they generously donated. They probably would have had to pay to have it removed so I was really doing them a favor. I knocked the boards loose from the pallet and nailed them together leaving an open bottom for drainage. When the it gets closer to planting time I will fill it up with potting soil and drop in the sprouted seeds we have in our indoor greenhouse.
And that was all there was to it. The grand total on the project was $55 or so and took about 6 hours. Check out the pics below.
I had some left over brick and stone so we made a little fire pit.
The one regret is that I didn't take a before picture to compare with the finished product.
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