Backyard Upgrade Teaching Me About Construction Work

One of my friends bought a house and he showed me some of the areas that he did not like as they were. One of those areas was a part of the backyard that was next to the basement. The previous owner of the house had large plants in front of a terrace and the terrace was below a kind of balcony, so it was nearly always in the shade.

I suggested to remove the plant, remove the sand and a brick wall and to adjust the stairs leading to this terrace. I also proposed that I would do that and he agreed even though I did not have experience in tiling, masonry and that kind of construction work in general.

During the project I learned a lot, I made mistakes and learned from them too and we were both quite happy with the final result.

These two photos show the original situation.

I had some ideas in mind about the final situation so I made some sketches to show my friend what I had in mind.

When you compare my sketches with the photos of the end result, you will see some differences. During the project the ideas developed further, but the general idea remained the same.

I did not count how many plants there were originally next to the terrace, but I guess there were about 50. I could just have removed them, but I decided to relocate all of them. To give them a better chance of survival, I first trimmed the branches so they were much shorter and then I planted several of them in another area of his backyard. You see the result of that on the photo above.

The remaining plants partly went to my own backyard and all of them are still alive.

After the plants were relocated a large amount of sand was still present. I started with a shovel and wheelbarrow to remove this sand. The total amount was about 6 m3, which would take roughly 90 full wheelbarrows to remove. The extra difficulty was that there was a difference in height to overcome. Fortunately I did not have to do this all by myself.

I could borrow a jack hammer and I used that to remove a low brick wall all along the length of the terrace and the higher brick wall that was besides the stairs. I had never used a jack hammer before, but it is not difficult to use. Just put it between the bricks and hammer them loose one by one.

On these photos you can see that below the sand there was a concrete floor and there was already a brick wall to separate the higher part of the backyard from this lower area. That was very nice as I did not have to build that.

The only issue was that the concrete floor beneath the sand was also about 2 inch lower than the gutter for the rain water. So every time that it rained, there was a lot of water present there.

We wanted the new terrace to be as large as possible, so the intermediate plateau of the stairs had to become smaller in size. I used the jack hammer again and tried to remove these large tiles. That was already a bit difficult, but the real struggle started when I found very hard concrete below the tiles. It would take a long time to remove that with a hand held jack hammer.

My friend arranged some heavy equipment including operator and they removed the tiles and the concrete underneath in a few hours.

I had never done any brick laying before, but when you see a professional do it, it looks real easy. And as with many things, it is not as easy when you try it yourself.

You can see the end result of my work in the yellow rectangle. It is not too bad and it will be covered by tiles later in the project.

I learned two important lessons:

1. Take some time to make something to hold the string properly in place. I struggled quite a bit with the string to get it nice and tight so it would make a good straight line that I could follow.
2. It takes practice to get better at brick laying, so keep practicing.

I used large blocks to build a new step for the stairs at the point where the concrete was removed.

The most important thing it to think ahead about the final dimensions. For me the height was the most important thing to focus on in order to get all steps equal in the final situation. The concrete at the floor would later be raised, so I had to keep that in mind too.

I started with a thin layer of bricks and after that I had just the perfect height to add the large blocks.

Small imperfections could later be covered by the glue for the tiles.

Originally I planned to make a second stairs as short cut between the new terrace and the grass just above it. I made a stack of bricks with a tile on top to see what it looks like in reality. We both did not really like it, so we decided not to build it like that.

I think that it is always useful to check if you still like the original idea once you see the project developing.

We had a lot of old tiles that came from another part of the backyard. They were 3 cm (more than 1 inch) thick, 90x90 cm (3x3 feet) wide and very heavy.

I used an small angle grinder with diamond disc to cut the tiles to the size they needed to be. Nearly all of them had to be cut to size, so it was quite a lot of work to cut them. I wore a mask, gloves and eye and ear protection and cut one at a time. It took about 10 minutes per tile to get them to the right size.

And when they were smaller, I could also carry them by myself to the new terrace.

In one of the next steps you will find out that most tiles came loose again after I glued them. That was due to several mistakes, but one mistake came from the fact that the tiles were originally on a stack with still some wet sand between them. Therefore the tiles were slightly wet when I glued them in place and I know now that tiles have to be dry for the glue to stick...

I had never glued any tiles before, but I asked a bit around and some people prefer glue while others said I could also use mortar to fix the tiles in place.

The advantage of mortar would be, that it is a bit easier to handle the fact that my layer of large blocks under the tiles was not perfectly flat.

So I used mortar to put some of the tiles in place just similar to how I used mortar on the bricks in step 8.

That was again a mistake. Apparently, when you want to use mortar to place tiles, you should add some dry mortar powder less than 5 minutes before you place the tile. I did not know that...

Some of my tiles had very limited space under the tile (because my layer of blocks was a bit too high in some places), so there I used glue for tiles. I added too much water, my tiles were a bit wet and I only put the glue on the blocks and not on the tiles before I put them in place. That was all wrong. The glue had to be thicker, the tiles had to be dry and you have to put the glue on both surfaces. I did not know that either...

My friend sent me a message with the photo above and he mentioned this tile came loose. So the next day I glued this one back in place.

All tiles that were standing vertically on the concrete floor were now in place. Since the concrete floor was below the gutter, the water could not flow to the drain and after every rain shower, there was water present in my working area.

My friend contacted a company that could pour concrete at a slope so that all rain water would flow to the gutter.

That guy recommended to add some rebar netting to prevent that the newly added concrete would crack. So I used an angle grinder with a cutting disk for metal to cut the rebar netting to the correct size.

I carried the rebar netting to the concrete floor of the terrace and the combined weight of me and the netting was too much for two of the tiles of the stairs and they came loose too. So I glued them back in place again.

In the evening after I went home my friend looked at the images from the security camera to see the progress of my work. He sent me a message with this screenshot and asked what happened. Two large stones in the blue circle were upside down. I told him that I checked all tiles and stones to see if they were coming loose too and these two indeed came loose.

You can see the red and white tape on top of the two tiles that I glued back earlier that day. Later that evening my friend went there in person, tried some more tiles and accidentally also hit the two tiles that I just glued again and since the glue did not set properly yet, they came loose again too...

The company that was delivering the concrete came with three guys and a pump and they poured a nice concrete floor with just enough slope so the water will flow to the gutter.

At the side of the new concrete you can see a wooden plank that I connected to the gutter. That kept the concrete out of the gutter.

Just before the guys arrived with the concrete I decided to remove all tiles that might come loose again later by prying them loose with a crowbar.

Here you see another screenshot from the security camera. The guy on the photo has many years experience in construction and he came to help me with the tiles to make sure they were never coming loose again.

We first used a primer (orange) to help the glue stick even better. Then we used a professional glue, put it on both surfaces and made sure the tiles were dry.

Now the tiles did not come loose anymore.

With all tiles in place and after the glue had set, I filled the gaps between the tiles with the designated filler material.

When that had cured I used the chalking gun to make sure water could not enter between horizontal and vertical steps and between the tiles and the bricks of the wall.

We thought it would look nice to have some grass on the terrace, but real grass cannot grow very well on concrete. Also carrying a grass mower down the stairs regularly is not ideal, so we decided to go for a good quality fake grass.

Below the grass is a layer of material that will help with draining the water so the grass will dry quickly after a rain shower.

Placing the grass is not difficult. It is similar to placing a carpet on the floor. I used a knife to cut it to the right size and rolled the grass in place.

Here you can see what the result is with the grass in place. At one end I added some tiles as we plan to place a barbecue there and we wanted to protect the grass from sparks.

We added some chairs, some plants and some other decoration to make it look cozy.

Now the project is ready!

My friend can enjoy his new terrace and I learned a lot.