Here are pictures of our house in Toronto, taken at various stages.

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Comment on this picture (Last update: 2 Jun, 2005)

We went outside to dig up weeds from the backyard.

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But while we were out there, we decided to have a go at making a patio. The previous owner had left a bunch of patio stones just piled up in the backyard, so we started moving them and stacking them up, clearing a space.

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Here's some more of what we had to work with.

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There was also a whole lot of junk that we'll have to find some way of removing.

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Just sticking out of the ground are these really big blocks of concrete. I have no idea what they're for.

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They run at least as far as from where Kat is standing, to the spade.

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Kat digs around the one that's sticking out of the ground.

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She managed to get it free. If we removed it, though, we'd not only need to get rid of it somehow, but we'd need extra dirt to fill the big hole. So we opted to just dig out some extra dirt from the hole, and bury it entirely.

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Kat walks on it to push it down.

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And reburying it.

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Another job, while we're resting from the patio: the last of our back steps is pretty high off the ground, and supported by a random assortment of wood and bricks.

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Closeup of the support.

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Replacing the old support with a concrete step solves both problems.

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Back to the patio. We did our best to level the ground, but some parts are packed down, and some are loose. So we covered the area with what weight we had; the plan is that over a couple of days, it'll pack down, and then we'll do another levelling. We'll also need some more patio stones.

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Day 2: We strung a line parallel to the fence. This will be the edge of the patio. Next we started to move the bricks, relevel the ground, and carefully replace them.

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We started in the corner; the first three bricks are placed. Each one takes a number of iterations of "remove brick; level ground; place brick; check", so it goes very slowly.

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We got the four bricks in the corner levelled out with each other, and then called it a day.

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Day 3: We bought eight more patio stones from Home Depot, and rented one of their 90-minute vans to bring them home.

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We started laying the new stones, and made sure they're level.

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Kat sits, after we laid the second set of four stones. They're different from the ones we had, so we're making a 2x2 checkerboard pattern.

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Day 4: Kat levelled the ground for the next day of stone-laying.

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We got through the next set of four white stones pretty quickly (they're quite a bit lighter than the grey stones), so we decided to just press on.

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All sixteen stones laid! That was by far the hardest part of the job (or so we hoped).

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Day 5: We bought some soil to put around the edges of the patio, since the existing dirt probably isn't so plant-conducive.

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Kat spreads the new soil.

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Meanwhile, I tackle the path from the driveway to the patio (currently empty).

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We put bee balm near the corner of the patio.

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The finished walkway consists of three steps, each one of the half-stones.

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Over to the right of the shovel, you can see the lamb's ears.

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Kat places the small stones around what will be the flower bed.

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At the end of day 5.

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Day 6: It's time to tend to the sorry state of the lawn in the rest of the backyard.

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The first pass involves digging everything up to a depth of about 3".

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And then a second pass with the rake to break up all the clumps.

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Meanwhile, Kat plants some more things in the flower bed.

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After the yard is tilled, we pull out the grass seed.

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We bought this handheld spreader, as the package of seed suggested.

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But it turned out the spreader sucked, so Kat spread the seeds by hand after all.

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Another pass with the rake, and some watering, and we're done for the day. We only seeded the part of the backyard near the patio; if it works out, we'll fill out the rest.

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Comment on this picture (Last update: 19 Jun, 2005)

Day 7: Kat adds more plants to the flower bed.

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The plants along the back porch.

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The plants along the fence.

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The plants in the standalone pot.

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One week later: in this extreme closeup, you can see that the grass is indeed starting to come up.

This page last updated: 26 Jun, 2005