He chose 16″, great choice!
We drew our plan out & measured the space in between so we’d know exactly how much material we needed AND exactly where things would go when we get to that part of the project
Order & pick up your materials. This is best during these times and always order a little extra.
We didn’t account for breakage & after a happy accident, had to head back to the store for an extra paver or 2. And more rocks.
We used a combination of a square & pointed digging shovels – pointed to start the process of getting through the clay dirt & square (shovel or spade) to get under the grass in mostly even “strokes”.
This left us with a fairly even dirt pad to start with.
Normally you would tamp down at this point, start back filling & leveling.
But here’s where we did things a little differently than I’ve seen before & differently from what we did in our previous home…
The clay underneath is serving as our base.
Lay out weed block fabric and/or heavy duty black plastic. Pull it fairly taut & secure with landscape pins. Bricks or other heavy objects will work in a pinch to hold everything in place.
Use a garden rake to spread the dirt & a board the width of the landing pad to smooth & level it out.
You WILL have lots of extra dirt using this method because it’s basically just filling holes at this point.
Once the 1st pass is complete, set a paver in place & check for depth (or height, depending how you look at it). Take note of how much space you have left to fill.
Continue back filling & leveling until your test paver is exactly perfectly level at the exact height that you need it – whether it’s even with the grass or an existing patio (like our’s) or any other structure.
** Note: The other way I’ve done this before, and seen other’s do it, is to tie string or rope to posts in a grid pattern over the area to be paved & use that as the leveling guide. **
As you lay the pavers, be sure to use your trusty level to get each individual paver level, and then level with it’s neighbors. Add or remove dirt as needed.
Also, depending on the location of your landing pad, you will want to pay attention to grading. Ours is adjacent to the existing patio which slopes slightly downward to allow for drainage.
So our pavers had to slope ever so slightly as well.
Try to keep the rock at or slightly below the level of the pavers. And make sure there are no sharp edges facing up – that would not feel good underfoot.
Hose down your new landing pad. We hosed our’s quite a bit just to be sure that the drainage was dead on perfect. Again, better safe than sorry. Plus this makes the rocks really stand out.
