Hallelujah, the patio is finished!
After a couple of days to recover and let soreness fade, I’m ready to finish the story. We left off with me passed out on the mostly-laid pavers late Friday night. We took Saturday off for family time and an early Mother’s Day, but Sunday I planned to spend an hour or two finishing the edge cuts. That short plan turned into a seven- or eight-hour slog.
The curved border required many precise cuts. To mark where each paver needed trimming I placed a full stone against the border pavers (the so-called “soldier course”) and penciled the overlap to indicate the cut line. Then I took each marked piece to the wet saw.
I borrowed a small wet saw from my dad rather than renting the heavy-duty version. It did work, but it struggled with the roughly 2.5-inch-thick pavers. That meant two cuts per stone—one from each side—and sometimes even more passes when the machine limited how far the stone could slide through. On top of that I often had to finish the break with a hammer and screwdriver to snap the center piece the blade couldn’t reach.
Multiply two to four cuts by the 50+ stones that needed trimming and it’s easy to see why the afternoon stretched into evening. Around hour three I briefly wished I had sprung for the professional saw, but I stuck with the borrowed tool and kept going.
When a cut was accurate enough, I set the piece in place and tapped it level with a rubber mallet so it sat snugly in the sand bed like the rest of the patio.
Despite the hard work, the finished look was worth it. Later, brushing sand between the pavers helped hide small imperfections in some of the cuts.
By the end of Sunday I’d completed the cuts and even fixed a sagging gate that threatened to scrape the new stone. The lighter tone on some edge pavers in photos is just wet-saw dust that hadn’t been rinsed off yet.
Here’s a closer look at the pattern we used:
We chose a pattern sometimes called an “I” or “K” pattern—let’s call it a “J” to split the alphabetic difference. Visually it looks like an H made from two 6 x 9″ pavers and four 6 x 6″ pavers, flanked by more 6 x 9″ pieces. We matched the driveway pattern the previous owners used so the whole exterior feels cohesive. The stone yard warned it could be more challenging than a completely random layout, but once we set the first few units, we built outward and it went smoothly.
On Monday I finished with the top layer of paver sand to fill the joints and lock the stones in place. The process is straightforward: spread sand, sweep it into the joints with a broom, then lightly mist the surface so the sand settles into the cracks. It’s repeat, mist, and touch-up until the joints are full. When wet the sand looked darker and clumpy, but it dried to a complementary gray tone.
If your budget allows, polymeric sand is a good upgrade because it hardens and helps prevent weeds, but we used standard paver sand to save about $100. Our previous patio used the same sand for three-plus years with only occasional weeding, so this felt like a practical choice. We can always upgrade to polymeric sand later if needed.
After the sand step I backfilled the borders with dirt to hide the plastic edging. I didn’t take a direct after-photo of the backfilled edge, but here are the before shots with liriope that framed the area.
For the reveal we staged the patio with temporary furniture pulled from around the house to give a sense of scale. It’s not weatherproof or final, but it helped us imagine how the space will function. Long-term we’d like a daybed or loveseat and a coffee table to create an outdoor living room, plus a space for Clara’s sandbox or baby pool. The grill is a permanent fixture already—finally a proper home for it—and we hope having the patio in place will motivate us to use it more.
Sherry added the finishing touch with a ceramic bird feeder she’d been saving for the patio; it looks much better outside than on the bathroom counter where it lived while waiting for this space.
We’re excited for Clara to use this safe, gated area to play and draw with chalk without worrying about a busy driveway. It should be a nice spot for casual family time and small gatherings.
From planning through cleanup we estimate about 30 hours of work. If you hit fewer curves and less stubborn concrete, your timeline may be shorter. Here’s our budget breakdown:
- 300 sq ft Cottage Stone pavers (Southside Building Supply): $621
- Heavy-duty plastic patio edging and spikes (Southside Building Supply): $69
- Paver sand (Southside Building Supply & Lowe’s): $107
- Gravel (Southside Building Supply): $240
- Delivery for pavers, sand, and gravel (Southside Building Supply): $145
- Misc supplies (stakes, line levels, nylon string, hand tamper from Home Depot): $40
- Weed-block fabric & crampons (Home Depot): $30
- Grand total: $1,252*
*We actually paid $1,332 but received an $80 refund when we returned empty sand and gravel bags.
We blew past our original under-$1,000 goal, but by doing the work ourselves we saved nearly $4,000 versus professional estimates for a curved patio of this size. It was hard work and our hands show it, but the result gave us a functional and attractive outdoor living area that we’ll enjoy for years.
With the patio done we’re ready to host Clara’s birthday and hope for good weather. Fingers crossed the jinx doesn’t hold.