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DIY the Perfect European Patio in One Weekend

ByDesi

Looking to build your outdoor European installed patio, let me help you! I pinned so many of these on my Pinterest board, until maternity leave had me inspired to just DO IT!

At first, we wanted to use only tiles, but that got extremely pricey and decided to switch to concrete stones and pea gravel.

Things you need:

You can do this in one weekend! Our area was 15 by 9 and cost us $670 to do from our local Lowes (mainly). Our patio set cost around $900 after we got the chairs, but if I could go back, I’d thrift something cute. We did add a TV on the house as well, so this area is easily one of our favorites, especially when we are entertaining.

Instructions

We repurposed that grass to where our pool builders had gone in and out.

Step one: you will want to get your foundation tilled and level as possible with a small slope (if possible), because of the gravel, you have room to just have a plain level surface and water will go through the rocks.

This was where we realized there was no turning back

Step 2: You will want to do your edging and the make sure to spray a really good weed and grass killer. I picked up Spruce because it is known for being safe for pets, and honestly I love it (not sponsored, but we wish we were). For this, I chose to have edging, because I knew I would get paranoid at the rocks if I messed them up or they were out and about in our yard.

We chose to leave a gap, which you honestly can’t tell until we point it out

Step 3 & 4, because it’s a doozie.

Lay a landscape barrier really well. Tack it down and make sure it is good. Originally, ours sat because of the rain and ended up redoing it tight to make sure it was good to go.

Put the bricks down in one row length and width wise to ensure we liked the stone-colored concrete and the pea gravel we chose together (ours are linked). Once we saw what they looked like, we did not want to cut anything, so we left a gap of all gravel against our short side, since our drain is connected for the pool. This allows the gravel to catch the rain and water (the gravel is about 3 inches deep).

Hannah carried all of these bricks since I was post partum- wife of the year

Step 5: Glue the gravel with mulch glue. Lay it on THICK.. For the best results, do it again the next day. Ours catch rain, have chairs on them, and a fire pit, and 18 months later we are having to re-glue only spots our chairs were on while people were sitting in them.

All done

Enjoy

Now enjoy that patio. We hung lights from our house over to poles near our pool. I also planted hydrangeas in the back (which look so sad here-but they will not always be that way)!

Let us know if you have any questions and tag us in yours to see how it turns out!

Check out our backsplash DIY here

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