----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scope Of Work: Walkway and patio pavers. Hot tub pad and electrical hookup. Permeable pavement soak away. Retaining wall and planting relocations.
Time Frame: 2 Weeks
Budget: $30,000.00 - $25,000.00
Designer: Homeowner and Chaz Morenz, 3d renders by Garry Reisky
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As with every new venture or project in life, they usually start with a single idea, that initial creative idea pops into your head, how does that happen anyway? After the initial idea you add more pieces to the puzzle and voila , you're done! And that's exactly how this project came together. The story goes that this homeowner had a hot tub growing up at his parents house in the prairies, you see, there are a lot of good memories surrounding that hot tub, especially during those teenage years! Fast forward 25 years and that prairie boy is now living in the big city of Toronto. After building a new house and dealing with all the details that go into the interior, attention now shifted to completing the backyard. As you can see from the pictures below, the back yard was empty, a clean slate. What to do, what to do, hmmmm, perhaps it's time for a, I don't know, a hot tub! A hot tub would be perfect, let's bring back the glory days! Although this project did start off as just a hot tub installation, like so many projects, it expanded. After some discussions I suggested to the homeowner that they collaborate with Chaz Morenz to come up with a landscape plan for the whole backyard space. The final plans were returned to me, I priced the plans and the homeowners were comfortable with the price, so we signed a contract and moved this project into production.
We started working on site and the first order of business was to get the power line installed for the hot tub. The line was trenched and installed to the required depth following the guidelines by our local electrical safety authority. If you are doing a project like this, please check your local codes to see what is needed, you may need a permit and inspection. Safety is important. we had a licensed electrician handle the installation.
One area of concern for this project, was dealing with a specific area in the yard where water pooled. On the back right side of this lot, spring's snow thaw and heavy rains would fill this corner with water and slowly and I mean slowly, dissipate. Adding a patio, walkways and hot tub base would only make the problem worse, we had to find a solution. One solution that we have been using more and more of on these urban landscaping projects is a combination of permeable pavements and water matrix blocks. The system works as follows, water flows through the joints of the pavers, it goes through the gravel base and fill up the blocks. The water in the blocks drains back into the ground, it's a thing of beauty. And this is exactly what we did, where the water pooled, this is where the blocks were installed. In the pictures below the black milk crate looking things are the water matrix blocks. Over top of that , clear gravel is installed, than the pavers with a joint material that let's water flow through, problem solved!
There was an existing Japanese maple along the fence line that was in good condition. There was a little damage to one of the branches, other than that it was healthy and a great candidate for transplanting. The plan was to move this Japanese maple into the location where the retaining wall would be installed. Moving plants to a new location always comes with some risk, if you're careful and get a clean root ball you can reduce that risk. As with all plants the key is to not put it into too much stress. We prepared the new location, the tree came out with ease and it was installed immediately into the new location. I kept an eye on the tree as we continued with the project, watering daily. I've been back to this project numerous times since completion and the Japanese maple is thriving nicely in the new location.
With the big hurdles out of the way this project jumped into high gear, soil was moved out gravel moved in, grades checked and yes, the best part of any project, pavers went down! Not so fast, the pattern and layout had to be just right. A little nip and tuck here and there and the final layout was approved. The larger patio pavers were measured and remeasured so that there would be equal size stones on the edges. There's nothing worse than looking at a project where full size pavers start but end at an edge with odd sizes or shapes. Landscaping is like the artists brush, you have to stand back and look at your creation with a critical eye and adjust if needed. Starting with a good plan always helps but there are always adjustments that need to be made.
This project turned out fantastic and the homeowner's are very happy with it. The patio furniture had to wait because the basketball net was moved from the front to the back during the pandemic. This made everyone happy in the household, the hot tub and new basketball court got a serious work out, bring on the new memories!
Materials used on this project
- Pavers - Patio: Techo-Bloc, blu grande, shale grey.
- Pavers - Walkway: Techo-Bloc blu 60 smooth 6"x13" , onyx black.
- Retaining Wall: Unilock lineo dimensional stone, granite blend.
- Lights - Kichler, Hinkley