Building a New Flagstone Patio

Finally, after a long wait, I'm getting my flagstone pathways in the front and side of house, as well as a patio in the back, installed this weekend. I'm so excited I can barely stand it. I'm one of those folks that will stash and save until I can afford to pay cash for what I want, so I've been waiting patiently for about 4.5 years to have all this house work done. It's amazing the difference it makes having proper pathways.

I went stone shopping last weekend at a local stone distributor and of course i happened to find two lonely half pallets of the coolest green flagstone tucked away on the property. When I asked the sales person if they had more, she told me they'd had that stone for a while and would not be getting any more. Of course, I always have to like the stuff no one can actually get their hands on. So after circling the stone yard for about 30 more minutes, talking to myself, running calculations on my cell phone calculator, I decided to gamble and go for a mix. Because I had to have that green stone. I have a thing about greens. The entire inside of my house is painted varying shades of greens, teals, etc. So I snagged the two pallets of green stone and filled out the order with three more pallets of terracotta colored Oklahoma flagstone. And crossed my fingers it would look good together.

So far so good...here is how it's looking so far. The areas are dug out about 2.5 inches, lined with weed-block fabric, bedded with decomposed granite, then the stone is laid and packed in with more decomposed granite. For those of you wondering about materials, I had about 490 sq. ft. to cover. The flagstone will cover about 80-90 sq.ft. per ton (depending on the type/size of stone - the smaller the stone, the less the coverage). So that was 6 tons of stone (about 5 pallets) and about 6 tons of decomposed granite. groovy. I'll post more photos upon completion. whoohoo!