A Landscaper's View

Here is the completed patio and sidewalk with the polymeric sand brushed into the cracks and the sealer spread over the surface.

In addition to putting the sealer on the surface of the patio, great care was give to the stone and brick face edging.  As demonstrated in these two pictures, the sealer also enhances the grout giving it a deeper, bolder color.

This project turnout very well.  It was exciting to see the transformation.  To view all the pictures from the project, go the the Pictures link at the top or just click here.

In a couple months, we’ll be back at this project to put in some flower beds along these new walkways and put in foliage along the pool.

To keep the water from seeping into the cracks, freezing, and thus ruining the stone, we brushed polymeric sand into the travertine to fill in any pockets where water could collect.  After brushing the polymeric sand into the crevices, we misted the entire patio and sidewalk several times for the sand to harden.  Here’s a picture of paver with the sand filled in.

After the polymeric sand is set, we spread a sealer across the surface.   Each of the three sealers pictured below adds a different color tone to the stone.

In the next post, I’ll be posting several pictures of the finished product.

Here are a couple pictures of the patio and sidewalk with the majority of travertine laid.  Because the plan is to lay marble stones lengthwise for the edging, we had to cut the travertine stone with a angle grinder for the edging to be the right fit.  You will notice some gaps next to the edging.  Because these pieces were so small, we set them in place as we put the edging pieces on.

We decided to have a unique edge that mixed old local bricks with a more modern stone marble.  There are no pictures of it, but we put up forms to help mold the mortar and give the project a nice finished look.

Travertine (or “travertine limestone” or “travertine marble”) is a very fine stone that is often used for patios, sidewalks, or in gardens.  It has small pits or troughs throughout it that give it its unique look.  The travertine used on this project was imported from Italy.

Before we began laying the travertine, we first prepped the concrete pad by blowing off the the leaves and dirt and applying a coat of concrete bonding adhesive to the pad.  This gives the mortar a better surface to bond, thus insuring a more stable finished product.

For a project like this, you need to use something other than traditional cement mixture.  To do this project right, we added a couple ingredients into the mortar mixture.  First, we used Type “S” hi-strength masonry cement mixture.  For each wheelbarrow, we used only half a bag of Type “S” cement, seven shovel scoops of sand, and about 10 ounces (or 1/3 of a 32 ounce bottle).  Mix it up with water by following the instructions on the bag of cement.  You don’t want it too runny or you can’t work with it, and it can’t be too dry or it’s not pliable.

Here are some pictures as we laid the first stones on the sidewalk and patio.  Notice on the patio that we ran string across the pad.  This was used as a guide to keep our initial line centered and keep the surface level even.  We also used a 6′ level to give it a small slant for water to runoff.

Back in November, we worked for an customer building him an Mediterranean style patio and sidewalk.  The customer had already laid a concrete foundation for both the patio and sidewalk.  It was the crew’s job to finish the project by laying Italian stone paver or travertine down.  Leading this project was StonePetal Landscape.

Here is a picture of the concrete pads for the patio and sidewalk:

Over the next several posts, I will describe the construction process and show pictures of the patio and sidewalk and they took shape into what it looks now.

Unless otherwise noted, the landscape projects were designed and developed by Stone Petal Landscape, LLC, under the leadership of Jane Fanning.