What was wrong
The back door opened onto a three-foot drop and a strip of railroad ties that had been failing since the Clinton administration. The family used the yard about twice a summer.
What we did about it
Set the terrace level with the kitchen door so nobody steps down carrying a tray.
Excavated eight inches and compacted the base in three lifts, testing each one. A patio is either flat in ten years or it is not, and this is where that gets decided.
Used open-graded stone underneath so the water drains away before February can freeze it and lift the field.
Cut the steps from the same full-color bluestone as the terrace, so they read as one surface and not something bolted on afterward.
Ran low-voltage lighting into the seat wall before anything was set, because retrofitting it means taking the wall apart.
- Town
- Wyckoff, New Jersey
- Year
- 2015
- Lot
- 0.51 acre
- House
- 1962 split level
- On site
- 16 working days
- Work
- Hardscape, Lighting, Planting
What went in the ground
- Boxwood, Green Velvet
- Catmint, Walkers Low
- Oakleaf hydrangea
- Little bluestem
Materials
- Pennsylvania bluestone, full color, thermal
- Wallstone seat wall, dry laid
- 3/4 inch clean stone base
- Brass step lights, 12v
Zero settlement in eleven winters. Two joints repointed in year eight.
My brother-in-law had his done the same summer by somebody cheaper and it is a birdbath now.
Tell us what the yard is doing.
Forty-five minutes on your property, a drawing you keep, and a number in writing. If we are the wrong company for the job we will say so on the first visit.