The first challenge was that the patio area needed a lot of dirt fill to raise it up. Partly this was because I wanted the patio higher than the existing ground anyway, but also in part because I want to raise the sides of the pond early next year, as noted in the last post. I created walls to hold the dirt in using the old pieces of ground-contact 4x6 beams, held in place with 12" rebar pounded into the ground. Now, where to get dirt to use as fill?
Well, part of the rest of the plan was to build a flat patio in front of the house, roughly 8x10, and to have stairs down to the patio from the front porch. The front patio would connected to the pond patio via a 3.5' wide path. Since the ground in front of the house was fairly steeply sloped I would need to dig quite a bit to create a flat spot for the front patio and the pathway. So, I started digging the dirt for the front patio and using it to fill in the pond patio.
By September 5th progress had been made. This first picture shows the pond patio area, taken from the footbridge:
Compared to the pictures of the same area in the last post much has changed. You can see the dirt fill-in, varying in depth from 6" to over 2' at the far end of the picture near the driveway. The dirt has been tamped down several times, watering between each iteration, to make it solid. You can see the start of building green metal edgings -- these edgers are 4" tall and will add that much height to the patio. (They were in place by the end of the day on the 5th.)
If you look closely you'll also see evidence of an electrical conduit Near the top of the photo is a black-topped skimmer box for the pond, which houses the pump. Just to the right of that is a grey pipe, curved, that is sticking out of the ground. I used 1/5" schedule 80 pipe and ran 20' of it under the patio. This will all me to later add an electrical box at that location, both for powering the pond pump (and future lights) but also for general outdoor electrical outlets. The pipe opening is covered and will be this winter to keep it clean and dry inside.
Finally, note the colored stakes gathered on the ground at the bottom of the photo. As planned elements are built the stakes are removed and sometimes reused.
This next photo, taken at the same time, shows the view from the pond patio area looking south:
This shows that the front patio has been dug out as has the pathway between the two patios. The ground near the bottom of the photo has been tamped down as that is where the dirt fill began. The most prominent feature is the new rock wall along the new pathway. We inherited quite a few walls in the front yard built of these types of rocks, and the same rocks were used as edging in various places. I had to remove quite a few of the rock edgings during construction of the pond and stream, and even more during construction of the foot bridge where the bridge ends at a rock wall. As part of this project I re-stacked the rock wall near the footbridge and used the leftover rocks for this wall.
The overall effect from a distance works well, giving the front yard a tiered effect, but flowing rather than rigid, uniform tiers. Plus the added advantage of reusing materials, thus saving money.
At this point the cost of the patios had been remarkably low. The conduit and rebar together were under $75 and everything else was reused. For the next section I'd need to buy more edging, as the leftover edging from the bridge project ran out, adding about $100, plus a couple of tons of sand at under $15 each (the savings of picking up sand yourself rather than buying the bagged stuff or having it delivered is stunning). Costs would go up just a bit with the stairs, but I'll cover that and the last month's work of construction in the next post.
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