<h5>Building the Bad Girl Steps And Bad Boy Island Annex</h5>

I view the patio and step construction projects that I do as my art. I planned out the "Good Girl Steps" which are intended to lead to the "Bad Boy Island II" patio much as I would a drawing: as a series of rectangles aligned to move down to the gate in the fence and over to the patio there. Building the steps presents a series of problems to be solved: how to make the steps go down gradually and in the intended direction, how to keep the supports from yielding to the outward, downward, and inward pressures which would otherwise cause them to collapse. I am taking pictures of the project as it moves along and intend to use this blog post to record the development of Good Girl Steps.

Here is an early view of the demolition of the plants which were in the area to be taken up by the steps and the patio. Eight 60 gallon barrels of material were removed from the site.


I began the project by creating the steps (GGS) leading to the fence. I decided to make each step individually to allow them to to be created "organically." The stairway path would also develop over time. I outlined the first step with support boards and leveled the ground inside the supports. Leveling the supports and keeping them in place was the first major issue for the project and I decided to use a combination of gravel and fence supports to keep the boards in place. I then began to lay the pavers on the gravel and sand base. I decided to use a "mosaic" of rock and paver fragments to fill the irregular shapes in the corners of the steps and then to lay out the rest of the pavers vertically. The rock mosaic will reappear throughout the project and that decision would continue to influence the shaping of both the steps and the patio.





This shows the completion of the first step and layout for the second.





Here are the first two completed steps and the layout for the third. There will be a fourth step to the fence. At this point, I realized that the ground drops away dramatically down to the fence and therefore I brought in several bags of top soil to build up the embankment beside the second, third, and fourth steps. In addition, soil was added to the sides of the supports to "shore up" the plantings to either side.

Work proceeded along with the development of the fourth step and the side step to the patio. I decided to layout the patio in a sun burst pattern and also decided that the side step could be triangular. The height of the patio had to reflect the height of the bottom of the fence at both the highest and lowest part of the site. To do this, I decided to adjust the height of the patio to reflect the lowest point, and to level the area by removing topsoil from the highest point to the lowest. I also decided to keep the patio two inches or so below the under side of the fence. I recessed it about a foot from the fence for air circulation. The above photo reflects these decisions. After the Good Girl Steps were completed, I began laying the patio. Each section of the sun burst was leveled and worked independently. Stones were embedded and cobblestones were chopped to form the mosaics enabling all the angles. Here is a view of the completed patio. Next year, I plan to complete the area under the gate and out into the yard. Some of the layout for that project has been made. See you next year!!