Notes from the Nelsens: Patio, Front Walk & Fire Pit Makeovers

Poor Ryan caught a cold at church last Sunday that basically put us both out of commission last week. So I am definitely looking forward to catching up on things this week and enjoying time with my happy-again boy! There's is nothing sadder than a sick baby.

I planned to share this post last week, but here it is a little later- the finished product of our patio, front walk, and fire pit makeovers!

Goodness these before picture are rough. But we're so excited about how the finished product turned out and feel like our backyard and front walk is so welcoming now!

Patio Before

Bear in mind that this house was built in 1945 and looked like this and this when we bought it.

The word "random" is very fitting for a lot of the "befores" on this house. In the past five years, we've tried to blend the "random" or tear it up altogether and replace it with a fresh and new look. For this project, we decided to extend the patio so that it covered or replaced all of the dirt, concrete, and stone, so that the driveway now backs up right to the patio, without random gaps in between.

We also tore down the wall on the right so that the patin now opens up to the yard, and we covered the back wall with flagstone to match the rest of the patio.

Patio After

Fire Pit Before

Matt and my brother-in-law Jeremy built this fire pit a few summers ago (see that post here) and did a great job with it. The problem was that the stone around it (which was set- or not so set- with sand by our sod guy) was moving and weeds were growing in between the stone. We knew it would be so much cleaner and nicer if we reset the stone around the fire pit in cement and extended the area to fit more chairs.

Fire Pit After

Front Walk Before

We created this front walk with Matt's parents' help on one of our first major yard work days (that post here). When we first finished it, and for a few years after, it looked great! The problem was that I couldn't find the tiny stones anymore that had to be replaced every so often. And, as we learned, the larger stones were pretty much a safety hazard walking up to our front door because it was impossible to keep them in between the large flagstone pieces. So again, we wanted to set this in cement and decided to use this original flagstone in the back to extend the fire pit area and lay new flagstone here that would match the patio.