By the time I installed the basketball goal, winter was approaching, and I decided to hold off until spring to take the next step—installing the electrical, lights, fan, and speakers. First up is installing the rigid conduit required outside in Illinois to each of the 6 posts and the areas I wanted outdoor outlets. Then…
Category: Backyard
Backyard Patio Structure: Basketball Goal
In the design phase of the patio, I actually increased the patio by a few feet outwards, specifically so I could fit a basketball goal, including enough room for college three point shots. Our driveway has a fairly significant incline, so it isn’t a good place for basketball at all, so if this Hoosier was…
Backyard Patio Structure: Steps
When our old patio was removed, they took out the concrete poured steps as well, which meant we had no steps for quite some time coming out of the back of our house. Inconvenient, and a little dangerous. Our original plan was to go with stone steps that mimicked the look below all of our…
Backyard Patio Structure: Roof
Once the framing was complete, next step was putting a roof on it! I used tongue and groove boards because I wanted that look on the inside. After debating several different ways of running boards, I decided while framing on a pattern that resembled a pattern in nature—a leaf. This made the angles a little…
Backyard Patio Structure: Framing
I started working on the framing as soon as the posts and the fireplace were finished, but took a break in the middle for a few days when the patio pavers were laid. Once complete, I had a nice stable paver patio to setup my two ladders, and I sure needed it. To start out…
Backyard Patio Structure: Patio
After the fireplace and posts were finished, I started framing, but right as I started framing, the patio contractor was ready to start. First up was remove the existing concrete patio, and once that plus the steps were gone and they laid the stone foundation, it became clear how big of an expansion the new…
Backyard Patio Structure: Fireplace
Once we had all the preparation complete with the water line, electrical, and speaker conduit, it was time for our fireplace! We talked about what we want, and our mason laid out the elevation in conjunction with our patio paver, who wanted to have a specific pitch from the house. Initial layout was an exciting…
Backyard Patio Structure: Preparation
After settling on a design for the patio structure, we had to seek folks to put in the patio pavers, and most importantly build the fireplace and stone columns. We reached out to several folks, with varying degrees of response, and widely different estimates. Suffice to say, part of what we were doing was somewhat…
Backyard Patio Structure: Modeling
As I was thinking about what kind of patio structure to build, we had used an Ez-Up canopy the summer before to think about the shade patterns to determine where and what shape to create. I knew that I had to keep the size under a certain limit to comply with our towns regulations, so…
Our Pond
Our pond is thriving in 2020, and includes 13 named fish, and many more. Plus, we’ve hosted ducks, two sets of frogs (and their tadpoles) and numerous birds that enjoy the pond and stream for a drink or a bath. While most of our plants came back from last year, we are always looking to…
Jeff Staley 