Le Garage to Le Patio
So we have a number of outdoor projects coming up at home that I’m going to try to detail in this space. You get to learn possibly useful (possibly useless stuff) and it will probably also help me keep track of everything.
We live downtown and have got this huge garage out back. Since we’re in a city lot, 25x100 feet, this two car garage takes up the entire backyard. What we’re left with is a small concrete patio between the house and the garage. Which is nice. It’s very private, being walled in by a fence and the garage. And since the courtyard is effectively below grade, the fence appears seven or eight feet tall and the garage wall probably ten feet.
The problem is we never use the garage. We park on the street, and so the garage became storage for bicycle, kayaks and garden supplies. Kind of a waste of space. Not to mention that the garage SUCKS. It is probably a hundred years old and made of concrete blocks. The problem is that no one took care of it over the years, and now it’s crumbling. The walls were probably painted at one point, which forms an impermeable barrier. Still water can get behind it, and cause the whole face of the block to pop off. And now we deal with the after effects of that. Concrete crumbling, mortar disappearing, blocks falling off. You can see through every wall, the ceiling leaks all over. I would say it probably sheds a few pounds of concrete dust every week. This crunches under your feet, forms piles, and just causes a mess.
So we’re getting rid of the garage and replacing it with a patio and shed. Although you could probably demolish the garage by turning a hose on it at this point, we hired a demolition crew to do it. It’s just too dangerous to do it ourselves. Not to mention back-breaking. This is how I envision the rest going.
- Contractor demolishes garage.
- Demolish garage floor and concrete patio up to house.
- Have contractor re-pour concrete patio up to house.
- Get fence permit approved. Install fence along property line with neighbor’s yard.
- Have 4” gravel delivered for new patio base
- Grade gravel to ¼ inch / foot slope
- Cover with 1” sand, save for 8x12 shed footprint, blocked with timbers
- Sort paver blocks by size if necessary
- Install paver patio
- Leave 2-3 feet of along fence for gardening, block pavers in with timbers
- Use polymeric sand in joints
- Have shed kit delivered
- Erect shed
- Finish installing fence along back of the lot to shed
- Plant plants or have someone else plant plants
- Re-install iron gate in our alley way
Of course this won’t go according to plan. Who knows what’s underneath our garage floor anyway? We should find out in the next few days…
We live downtown and have got this huge garage out back. Since we’re in a city lot, 25x100 feet, this two car garage takes up the entire backyard. What we’re left with is a small concrete patio between the house and the garage. Which is nice. It’s very private, being walled in by a fence and the garage. And since the courtyard is effectively below grade, the fence appears seven or eight feet tall and the garage wall probably ten feet.
The problem is we never use the garage. We park on the street, and so the garage became storage for bicycle, kayaks and garden supplies. Kind of a waste of space. Not to mention that the garage SUCKS. It is probably a hundred years old and made of concrete blocks. The problem is that no one took care of it over the years, and now it’s crumbling. The walls were probably painted at one point, which forms an impermeable barrier. Still water can get behind it, and cause the whole face of the block to pop off. And now we deal with the after effects of that. Concrete crumbling, mortar disappearing, blocks falling off. You can see through every wall, the ceiling leaks all over. I would say it probably sheds a few pounds of concrete dust every week. This crunches under your feet, forms piles, and just causes a mess.
So we’re getting rid of the garage and replacing it with a patio and shed. Although you could probably demolish the garage by turning a hose on it at this point, we hired a demolition crew to do it. It’s just too dangerous to do it ourselves. Not to mention back-breaking. This is how I envision the rest going.
- Contractor demolishes garage.
- Demolish garage floor and concrete patio up to house.
- Have contractor re-pour concrete patio up to house.
- Get fence permit approved. Install fence along property line with neighbor’s yard.
- Have 4” gravel delivered for new patio base
- Grade gravel to ¼ inch / foot slope
- Cover with 1” sand, save for 8x12 shed footprint, blocked with timbers
- Sort paver blocks by size if necessary
- Install paver patio
- Leave 2-3 feet of along fence for gardening, block pavers in with timbers
- Use polymeric sand in joints
- Have shed kit delivered
- Erect shed
- Finish installing fence along back of the lot to shed
- Plant plants or have someone else plant plants
- Re-install iron gate in our alley way
Of course this won’t go according to plan. Who knows what’s underneath our garage floor anyway? We should find out in the next few days…