This is a project I’d been meaning to do for years, but I also knew it was going to be a substantial undertaking. I went out one afternoon to poke around and see what would be involved and the next thing I know, I’ve moved enough rock and bricks around to really be committed.

I had this idea of having a raised garden at the back of the yard that would form a curve, with a “stream” of rocks passing by it going from wide to narrow and widening out again, leaving the rest of the yard as a patio.

In the end, that’s not how it turned out, but that was the idea that I came up with when setting out on this path.

I began by trying to rake up the small pebbles lining the back fence as much as possible. I had planned on reusing any clean rocks, so I set them aside next to the house so I could get to work building up the raised bed.

Perhaps the biggest constraints on the design were the size of the yard and the fact that we lack alley access. This means that keeping things to a minimum as far as things coming into the yard or going out as they all have to be carried. By me.

To the second point, there were a couple hundred landscaping blocks in the previous incarnation of the yard which I hoped to reuse. There was also a large amount of dirt that was going to have to come out in order to accommodate the rocks and the patio, and the raised bed was designed to solve both problems – first to use up the bricks and to hold several tons of dirt that I would need to move.

With the pebbles moved out of the yard, I set to work laying in bricks to form the raised bed. I worked from the south side of the yard to the north, using up bricks from the area surrounding the koi-poind-that-never-was. As I cleared that out, I was able to take the dirt from there and use it to fill up the south side, clearing the way for me to continue laying bricks.

Underneath the bottom course I used crushed rock and sand to form a base. This first course was very tedious, involving repeatedly checking for level (in both directions) and making small adjustments. But once it was finally in place, the process of cleaning off the dirt caked on the old bricks and putting them in place went very quickly. Cutting bricks for the corners was also a little time-consuming, but with a diamond blade for the angle grinder and a masonry chisel, it was doable.

Before stacking the bricks too high, I needed to fill in dirt as I went. To this end, I began digging up the grass. The technique that worked best for me was to use the shovel to cut two long lines about shovel-width apart. Then I’d come back between the lines, shoveling up small chunks. Ideally, these are cut off as shallowly as possible, as the grass doesn’t really make for great soil for the garden (it’s hard to dig in). Cutting it shallowly allows me to separate the grass into a compost bag and the soil into the raised garden.

At this point, I was probably about 50 hours and several weeks into the project and with still a lot more to go. As such, I was growing eager to get it wrapped up. Still, at this point all the grass was dug up and so I had a relatively blank canvas to start building the yard up.

My parents came to visit towards the end of September and what had started as a joke suggesting that my dad could help me pour the patio… turned to reality. My dad dug up the dirt to pour the patio, and after some calls and coordination we set a day to pour the concrete.

When the day came, the concrete pump got set up in the alley. The concrete was late, and when it did show up, it turned out to be too short to get into the pump. We improvised a ramp and were able to get under way, thankfully, but we were then about 30 minutes behind schedule. The concrete supplier had promised to send both trucks at the same time, but the second truck was another 30 minutes late.

We eventually got the concrete poured and set to work trying to finish it. We set some aside in a pile in case we needed any more, and were also able to pump some under the block stairs where previously a rat had gotten into the house.

The finishing went ok, except the concrete set up too fast. About four hours after the initial pour, the concrete was too hard to work or surface. Both my dad and I were frustrated at how quickly it set up, but still, it came out ok. Because the surface was pretty uneven in spots, I ended up getting some concrete resurfacer to even it out and give the concrete a consistent color.

While my dad was visiting, he suggested putting in a shed behind the grill. Before putting in any rocks, I poured four concrete pillars where the shed was going to go, and cast a couple of brackets in them to accept the shed’s floor. This way I could put in the rocks and finish the shed at my leisure.

Before I was able to put in the rocks, I had to pick up the top two courses of bricks in the raised bed and glue them down, as well as put a couple of courses of bricks (also glued) on the edge of the patio to retain the rocks. I also put down some toppers across all the bricks to hide the little voids between the bricks and to give it a more finished look.

After getting the patio in, I ended up with a lot more fill dirt than I had estimated originally. I rented a trailer and spent about 6 hours one Saturday hauling construction debris and fill dirt out of my yard bucket by bucket and to the dump. All in all, about 2.5 tons. But it cleared the way for putting down the rocks.

In digging out the grass and digging out for the first course of bricks, I found a number of large rocks in the yard. I used these rocks to form the border between my yard and the fence, to keep the rocks in. I put down some felt and had three tons of 1-1/2” river rocks delivered.

Despite the weight, this part went really quick and it had a tremendous impact on the look of the yard. Over the course of two days, the yard went from looking like a construction site to a real yard. The rain made quick work of the silt that came with the rocks, and soon they were looking clean and clear.

After some cleaning and tidying, I ended up with my new yard.