Halfway

It's harder than it looks, laying a stone patio. The base layer is easy....just shovel the gravel where you need it to go and then drive a compactor around it until it looks solid. The hardest part about the base is lifting the compactor out of your truck when you get back from the rental yard. The sand layer is pretty easy too. Just put the sand where you want it and drag a 2x4 over it until it looks smooth. Yep, the hard part is lifting 2'x3' stones into place and then making them level with all the other giant stones you've laid. This is
the part where you wish you had bigger muscles (or any muscles for that matter). And if lifting 80-100 lbs of stone isn't difficult enough, try re-lifting it from a flat position to shove some extra sand under it when it doesn't match up in thickness to its neighbor.

Screedin' my life away...

So, we're about halfway on this project now. I had high hopes of laying all of the stone today but since the stone thickness varies from 1.5"-2", we've had the tedious job of leveling each piece.

Saturday's progress: