DIY Budget-Friendly Pea Gravel Patio
When George and I built our house, we knew we’d want to spend a lot of time outside. We opted for a floorplan that had both a front porch and a back porch (front porch cocktails and back porch dinners). The house came with a covered back patio which we’ve SO enjoyed; however, we had an awkward space off to the side that wasn’t very functional. It was half pine straw and half grass … and our grill just randomly sat on top of the pine straw.
When George’s work schedule lighened up, we decided to take on this DIY patio project. After researching different options (thank you, Pinterest), we came up witha budget friendly option - a pea gravel patio with concrete pavers. We had a couple of questions about this DIY patio project, so we wanted to share our process! Our space measured out to be ~100 square feet of space, so we purchased items based off of these measurements.
DIY Pea Gravel Patio
Tools we used …
Rake
Shovel
Tamp (to level the ground)
Landscaping fabric
No-Dig Landscape Edging
Pea gravel (we used Quick Crete)
Pavers 16x6’’
The Process …
STEP ONE: Edge out the space you want. George did this with his edger to make the line more visible and easy to work around when digging up the sod.
STEP TWO: Rake up all of the pine straw.
STEP THREE: Using a shovel, George dug out all of the grass in the area. You can try and transplant pieces of sod to other areas of your yard that might need a little extra help. This step probably used the most man-power.
STEP FOUR: Level the yard. We used a tamp to do this after adding a little extra moisture (you can use a sprinkler to help soften to soil).
STEP FIVE: Roll out your landscape fabric. Many blogs I read added sand right before this step to help with leveling and weed control. The landscape fabric is also supposed to help with weed control - adding sand would be double coverage!
STEP SIX: Add your landscape edging. This will help contain the pea gravel when you lay it down.
STEP SEVEN: Space out your pavers! We new we wanted them to be about 6 inches apart after completing our measurements. George had purchased 30 pavers from Lowe’s and we spaced them out on top of the landscaping fabric!
STEP EIGHT: Add the pea gravel! We ended up having to go back for more bags at Lowe’s (this particular gravel was found in the masonry aisle) … we used 9 bags of pea gravel for our 100 square feet of space. Make sure you have enough pea gravel so that 1/2 - 3/4 the depth of the paver is covered. This helps with stability.
And TA DA! You now have a new patio! We ended up finishing the project for ~$250 and now we have SO much more functional patio space! My next project will be figuring out patio furniture …
Suggested Reading:
