Reclaimed Brick Garden Patio

I have collected (hoarded) reclaimed bricks for years. They sat in this lonely little pile off in the side of my yard just waiting for the perfect use. For awhile I thought I would create rambling brick walkways throughout my yard. Until the most glorious idea came to me: I would use them to make a reclaimed brick garden patio.

Truthfully, I knew nothing about creating a patio prior to this project. I knew it would involve a measure of digging and leveling, but full disclosure: that work was really hard.

I also didn’t do a lot of research. I probably should have, but in my defense, I approach most projects around here with the rationale that if it looks old/imperfect, it will fit right in here.

Before I even started digging and leveling, I wanted to see if I had enough bricks to pull off a patio of the size I envisioned. My first iteration of the patio was not great. Even though I wasn’t focused on making sure everything was straight, my tendancy to go crooked, coupled with the various sizes of the brick, meant that the hours of work laying everything out the first time around was not successful.

Every project is meant to teach us something, so I hit the ground the next morning determined to create a pattern that would make the imperfections seem charming rather than wonky. It didn’t take as long to test out this pattern, and I loved it enough to move forward.

Materials

• Reclaimed brick (FB Marketplace is a GREAT source!)
• Shovel
• Leveling mechanism (we used a board)
• Leveling base/sand
• Joint sand

I dug out around the exterior edge of the patio and then work to dig toward the center. I started off digging way too deep and had to back fill a little bit. Once that was done, the work of leveling began, which was truly the most tedious part of the process (and the part I received the most help with via my husband). His method, which was brilliant, was the use a board to level everything, dragging it around the pit until it seemed to glide effortlessly without pushing up more dirt.

My initial plan was to cover the leveled pit with landscape fabric, but I scrapped that idea when we ran out of it working on the garden. Instead, I laid out patio paver base (for my 10×7 patio, we used two bags). The directions on the bag said to use a layer of paver leveling sand over top, but I skipped that step. Might it be to my long term detriment? Perhaps. But I love how it all turned out, so it’s a step I’m currently fine having skipped.

Once we laid back out all of the bricks (notice the “we” … I was tired at this point and just ready to wrap up this project, so I called in reinforcements aka my husband), we decided to try a new product: polymeric sand. Once brushed into the gaps and activated with water, it hardens and keeps weeds at bay and bricks from shifting.

Truthfully, I stumbled across the product by accident. Something told me it was not worth the normal amount of over-thinking I would normally employ, so we just went for it. And drastically underestimated how much we would need. After having sent my husband back for more bags (10 total for our patio), following the directions on the bag was incredibly easy. We flew through this step in about 30 minutes. It took about three days to feel like it had fully cured (it felt sort of spongy up until that point), but it’s beautiful and definitely will be durable.

This project was a great and budget-friendly way to give an unused portion of our yard a little beauty boost. I can’t wait to string up twinkly lights and host a few garden picnics.

Stop back in on Wednesday when I share how we upcycled a roadside vintage iron patio set for this little patio. See you then!