While I’m totally smitten with the tropical backyard at the flip, I’ve also fallen in love with this awesome flagstone patio that we added right off the back door.
Let me start from the very beginning (which, according to Julie Andrews, is a very good place to start).
A few weeks ago when we first bought the flip, the patio was frightening:
I don’t know which was scarier – the blue outdoor carpeting, the green plastic roofing, the dark and dingy screens, or the confining peach brick wall? Take your pick. Clearly, it all had to go.
Once demo was complete, we were left with this worn concrete pad with remnants of the adhesive from the blue outdoor carpet – not too pretty to look at.
We considered our options. If we stained it, we’d have to grind down the concrete to get rid of the adhesive, and that still wouldn’t fix the few cracks in the slab. Same thing for painting. Stamping the concrete would be too expensive, and wasn’t really the look we were going for. That left tiling the concrete pad – but how expensive would that be?
Our first bid that we got from our tile guy was high – like sky-high. We were in a panic, what were we going to do to make the patio live up to the rest of the backyard? My hubby instantly went into bargain-hunter mode – it’s one of his strong suits. After a day of phone calls, he got a bid for less than a 1/4 of our tile guy’s original bid – score!!!!
But before the tiling extravaganza could begin, we needed some tile! We headed off to this place, which is the same stone yard where we bought the Austin stone for our fab fireplace:
Look at all of the goodies!!! We cute right to the chase and headed over towards the Oklahoma flagstone – we wanted to use the same stone for the patio as we did for the coping on the pool so that the pool and patio would look totally cohesive.
Do you think we found enough stone??
We stuck our name on this ton of 1 inch thick flagstone. 1 inch flag is perfect for tiling over an existing concrete pad – any thicker and it’s difficult to work with. However, you wouldn’t want to lay these thin babies straight on the ground without the support of concrete as flagstone is brittle and could break.
The next day, my lovely hubby borrowed a truck and brought this ton of precious cargo back to the flip:
Soon after, our new tile guy was picking the perfect stones and laying them out for a dry fit:
A few hours and buckets of thinset later, our patio looked like this!!
We ran off to Home Depot to buy 8 bags of Polyblend sanded grout in Fawn – the perfect match for the pool coping. Here’s the patio all grouted and gorgeous:
A few days later, we wetted down the patio and got to scrubbing with a long-handled broom – this was to remove the fine layer of grout that dried on top of the flagstone.
And now the patio looks like this!! I’m in love.
So, what’s the verdict? Do you guys like it? What kind of outdoor space do you have at your crib?
Yes, I LOVE it! Gorgeous and seriously inspiring Liz. I’m sending this post to my husband right now – because we have a crappy deck that we want to tear out and install a patio JUST LIKE THIS! Next summer, but still. I totally love it. And that picture of you in amongst the stone is awesome! I am so impressed — you guys are doing such an amazing job with this flip!!!
That is awesome! We have a slab patio with no cover at all – pretty boring! Something like this might work for us. Thanks for sharing :)
I love it! You guys are really going all-out on the flip and I’m so impressed.
I think I’d like to contract you guys to come do my house. This is looking fantastic. I am seriously so impressed with your flip skillz!
great job! I love the color of the stone once it was sealed…kudos to you and your hubby.
Wow! That stone patio looks amazing. I love the stone you selected and the tile work looks perfect. Kudos to you!
When is your open house…I have to see this patio. I’ve already told my husband this is what I want for our patio. I’ll have to get the name of your tile guy!
Awesome job Liz! You are really kicking some butt on this house! Very impressive!!!
You guys, thank you so much for all of your kind words!!! It’s so fun to hear that you guys are liking all of the details of the flip that are finally coming to life. :)
Lucinda,
Hopefully we will put the house on the market and have an open house the next weekend (like August 2). I’ll be sure to keep you guys posted on any plans!!! As for the tile guy, go ahead and shoot me an email at itsgreattobehome@yahoo.com and I’ll fill you in on the details!
~ Liz
It came out great! Are you planning on painting the pergola or keeping it natural? Also, will you be staging the house when it goes on the market?
Daily Decorator,
The pergola in the backyard will be kept natural – we love the look that the cedar gives the backyard. On the front porch, however, we added a cedar post that has been painted to match the shutters – with a little sanding, it looks perfect!
As for staging, we’ve thought about it but decided against it at this point. However, we’re totally open to it if it seems like we need to in the future. :)
~ Liz
this is probably a silly question…but, how did you figure out how much stone you would need in order to cover the patio?
Bridget,
Not a silly question at all!!! Our patio is 12 x 12, so we knew that we needed 144 square feet of coverage. The guys at the stone yard were able to tell us how much coverage we would get per ton of stone – theres really no way of knowing that without asking them (since it will depend on how thick the stone is, etc). However, flagstone and other irregular stones are unique in that respect – with typical tiles that have regular sizes (like 12 x 12, etc), you can determine on your own how much tile you need simply by finding the area of the space. Hope that helps!
– Liz