This should inspire you. Not only to think outside of your tiny BOXed-in condo patio (rowhouse), but to actually do whatever you were going to do, yourself.
This adorable couple here are family on my husband’s side. I specify because anybody on my side would have picked up the phone, and gotten ripped off by the first bloated quote they accepted.
I spoke to Kristi and Matt at a family function and we got on the subject of landscaping. We want to do our yard too, and the two of them had settled upon DIY flagstone. I twisted my face in a vote of non-confidence, because I’ve been brainwashed by landscapers to think that flagstoning is “definitely something you should leave to a professional.”
Um – not true. They dove in head first and it took them just over a week to complete because both have fulltime jobs and the rain this summer didn’t help.
Here’s what Kristi and Matt did, and by the way, neither of them are even remotely employed in the field, nor is anybody in their respective families (more details in the photo gallery below);
Total budget for materials: $500, all from New Sabby Concrete, Toronto
- 1 tonne of flagstones (which is approx 100 square feet)
- 10 bags of sand
- 20 bags of screenings (aka fine gravel)
- a couple of bags of special “EnviroBond” sand to fill in the gaps (it hardens when you add water)
- A few bags of pea gravel
Delivery cost: $100
Disposal of dirt: $40 for the Rhino Bag (Home Depot), $130 for pick-up and disposal.
Biggest Challenge:
“Digging out the dirt about 5 inches down and carrying it through the house to the front yard using buckets...in the rain! Ah, the joys of owning a townhouse!” The condo is a rowhouse with no access to the back pad save going around the block.
Most Time-consuming Part:
“Piecing together all the flagstone. They’re all irregularly shaped and different thicknesses. Once we had the pattern all laid out we had to level each stone one by one, adding or removing sand to try to make them all the same height.”
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Anybody else defied the odds, without a contractor/landscape designer?
Previously on Real People Reno: An Ikea Kitchen Top to Bottom
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