Building a brick patio
Here’s a simple plan to make laying brick patios easy. This brick patio design is easy to build yet elegant; laying the bricks in a striking pattern that requires no cutting.
What you need are a shovel, rubber mallet, level, crushed stone, landscape fabric, mason’s line, plywood to kneel on, a broom, garden hose, one long 2×4 for screed.
First measure the desired area. Rectangular design plans are easier to execute than curved designs. To ensure that you have a perfect rectangle, measure the two diagonals: they should be of equal length.
Dig out the area, to a depth of 8 inches. With a level, check that your excavation’s floor slopes (1/4 inch per running foot) away from the house for drainage, so water will run away from the house and patio.
Do a test run by laying your brick pattern to check your measurements. This way, if your initial measurement was off, you can correct it now. There should be about a two-inch extra all along the perimeter.
Remove the bricks that you laid as a test run in Step #3 (but keep the brick edging that you laid in Step #4 in place). Pour crushed stone into this framed area to a depth of 4 inches.
Tamp down the stone. Lay landscape fabric down over the stone to suppress potential weeds later. Now pour two inches of sand over the landscape fabric. Use a long 2×4 as a screed.
Starting at one end of the rectangle, run this screed along the sand, leveling the sand out. You want the sand’s level to end up two inches below the tops of the edging bricks.
Excess sand in Step #7 will be redistributed to low areas, and you’ll end up with an even surface. Tamp the sand down. Now it’s time to begin laying the brick patio flooring — for real.
Begin in a corner, pressing the bricks down into the sand. Make them as close together as possible. Strike the bricks with a rubber mallet to settle them into the sand.
You want “paving” bricks for this project. In the measurements that I’m giving, I’m assuming 4″ x 8″ bricks, about two inches thick. Brick pavers come in other sizes; but this size is easiest to work with.
For a design pattern, I’m suggest the “basket weave” The basket weave pattern is elegant yet simple, requiring no cutting of bricks. Avoiding cutting will save you in time, money and frustration.
Run a mason’s line across your forms as you proceed, row by row, in laying your bricks. The mason’s line will serve as a guide for evenness.
After laying the bricks, spread some sand over them. With a broom, work this sand into the cracks. Then, with a garden hose, gently spray the bricks so the sand will settle between the cracks. If the cracks aren’t totally filled, just do it again until they are. Now you’re brick patio is done.
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