I Transformed The Worst Side Yard In The Neighborhood

We all have the classic side yard, the classic setup of any home where most of us end up just parking trailers or leaving their dogs there behind the gate. [music] For the most part, it's kind of the most useless and unintentional piece of the property. Well, today we're on mission to build the most epic garden that not only is functional but also a place you want to hang out. In just any project, we're going to excavate to a blank canvas. >> Uh-oh. >> This mini skid's not going to fit. Things are going to go right, things are going to go wrong. >> That broke off. >> Yeah, that's broken, all right. I have no idea what this pipe is. It's Well, it's safe to say the sprinkler box is kaput. >> And by the time we're done, this is going to be the most magical side yard that you will never want to escape. >> Oh my goodness. >> Let's get into it. Oh, things are going wrong already. Well, this is not a great start. We're going to have to remove something here. Let's see if the gate is going to be enough to clear us. Okay. See [snorts] how much room we got now. Ah, that'll be about like 6 in of clearance. That's not the way I want to start my projects. All right, you're probably wondering where the heck we're at. We're over at Brent and Tally's place. And Brent and Tally are actually the viewers of the channel, which is awesome. And they reached out and they said they have the most epic backyard that's perfect for any project. And the reason why is because there's a lot of cool things they want to do here. And it just so happens that I've always wanted to build a particular project that I haven't told anybody except my wife. And that project is I've wanted to build a magical garden. Like something that's not only functional, but something you actually want to hang out with, have a cup of coffee in the morning, you know, do Oprah stuff. What does Oprah stuff mean? I have no idea, but I'm imagining a woman like Oprah that makes a lot of money. She's hanging out in her garden drinking wine. Which is funny because my dream for retirement that my wife always teased me about is gardening. I've taken care of and built things my entire life and when I retire I'm figuring I'm going to want to do that as well. So, Brent and Tally have this side yard here. So, what we're going to do is bring the magic to this functional space that gets tons of light anyway. And to do that, I'm thinking we have a paver walkway that's going to come to the center with a roundabout, you know, very >> [music] >> This is a tripping hazard. Very European around here. And in the middle of the roundabout we'd have an accent feature like this giant daytime or daylight lounging swing that you can have your rosé or coffee in. The path continues. We'd have arches, lights. We'd have garden beds that are designated, perhaps even tiered. It's going to have everything you're going to want and you're never going to want to leave it. And in order to accomplish that, we need to move some dirt to get us a blank canvas. So, ladies and gentlemen, let's fire up these engines. You know, if you are a man or woman between ages 34 to 44, you have to have to have to experience the joys of operating a mini skid steer. This is so fun. This is like Tonka toys when you're a kid except in real life with not that many consequences to be honest with you. You're unless you're scaling crazy hillsides, this thing's not going to get you in trouble. Big shout out to Tate Rents. They've been in business since like for 80 years, like 1946 or something like that. They're everywhere, multiple locations. Go check them out. Partnering with them is the coolest cuz they help me get these projects done so much easier. So, this is where we're going to have to get laser precise here. I got to get this piece of OSB and this dirt away from this fence line. And the reason I say precise is because I [snorts] really don't want this project to also be me building a new fence. So, thoughts and prayers, all of them, would greatly appreciate it. Steady hands. >> There's a chicken coop on the other side of this fence right here. All the chickens are like, "Buck, buck, what the fuck?" That was a dad joke. I'm cracking myself up. All right. It's a good day when no fences have been harmed. Boy, my palms are sweaty and I am puckered up. Uh I have I said 4 yd of road mix in the dump trailer, but it filled it up quite a bit. I'm going to guess it's closer to 6. Um I'm 10 minutes away. I already had somebody pull over and say, "Hey, my trailer tire looks deflated." Um it's the one that I'm concerned about because it has like a huge flat spot on it. Um I have a spare tire, but it involves me pulling over. So, in 10 minutes the real goal is to uh not blow a tire because trying to change a blown-out tire with a entire dump trailer full, that's not what dreams are made out of. So. Send thoughts and prayers. This is going to be sketchy. Of course, we're hitting all the construction that's around downtown right now. This is This is not ideal, folks. And I just found out that yesterday I realized my uh shocks on my truck are leaking. So, the truck is actually sitting a few inches lower to the ground, which is weird cuz I'm always like, "Oh, this is a big lifted truck with big 37-in tires on 22-in rims." It It looks bone stock now. So, um I don't like this at all. >> [sighs] >> I don't know if that's justifiable, if it even captures on camera, but I don't like that. Um This side is kind of okay. I don't know if you could see this patch here. Look at that. There's a I think one or two really bad ones that I bet you it's sitting on. We're currently I think another 7-8 minutes out. Fingers crossed, dude. Fingers crossed. I swear, once I get to the property, I'll use the mini skid to lift up the trailer, change the tire, and I promise to be a good boy. But for now, I just need to make this. Please. Yep. That's her. Okay, I don't want to jinx it. We're 3 minutes out. We're doing okay. Um I don't know if you've ever driven in a truck where the the shocks went out and it's just sitting on springs basically. It It bounces you around. Like I mean, it shakes you up. All the mirrors are rattling. Uh iPhone's got stabilization, so you're not going to catch too much. It's doing its job. But that sucks and it's also when you're towing, it leans you back. So you look like a squat of a truck. All things that I do not recommend to anybody to experience. It truly is you know, it's it's nerve-wracking. Woo, I am exhausted. The truck is slanted. The camera's not catching this justice here. The tires are definitely under inflated. This one [music] is absolutely terrible. I need to switch it out. But we're made it. I'm so happy. Humpty Dumpty, Chris and you guys, great name by the way, has come through and saved my butt again. We're here. Now, what I'm going to do is dump this load of road mix. I'm going to jack this uh trailer up, change the tire, and then go definitely inflate the tires cuz those are weak. I need to drop off this truck to get all new shocks put on there and it should stabilize fine. But going forward, not bad for a Wednesday. Let's get back to work. >> Yeah, they are super under inflated. They're sitting at like 45 PSI and they're supposed to be at 65 PSI. So that really explains a whole lot why I was freaking out for dumb yet not dumb reasons. So, you know, there you have it. Well, my neck is red. My kids are like, "Look at your neck, Dad. It looks like a dark black red." And it feels dark black red. And today's going to be another scorcher, but we're out here. We're grinding away and I love how everything turned out. We moved a crap ton of dirt out here. Got everything leveled. Got ourselves a walkway all the way through and a circular pad here where the pavers are going to go, which that's going to be super fun. And you better believe something did go wrong. We ruptured a sprinkler line, uh a main one. This is the 1-in pipe that runs straight to the front yard. So, I'm going to have to trench it down a little bit. I got more poly. We'll throw some couplings and some pipe clamps on there and uh do a quick little test fit and then we'll be ready for road mix, baby. I have no idea what this pipe is. It's almost like it didn't connect to anything. Now that I'm looking at it, this is the section that I broke and this section looks like factory clean. I honestly got don't know if this is actually going to anything. Well, it's safe to say the sprinkler box is kaput. I think that's the official medical [snorts] terminology. Kaput. There's a chunk missing there. That broke off. I really don't want to dig this completely out, get a new box and then fix it, put it back in. Instead, when we get a little bit free time on this project, which let's be honest, never happens, we are going to have to try to figure it fix this cuz I broke it and I need to make sure it's done right. All right, so this pipe goes there and it seems to be working. There's another one below here. Jeez, there's like layers upon layers of pipes. 1-in pipe here, 1-in pipe there, two there and they're all going in the same damn direction. Is this what nightmares are made out of? I don't have the right tool for the right job. I wish I had a pickaxe. That would be beautiful or an excavator, like a mini one. I think if I was to have any tool at this point in my life, I'd want like a mini excavator. A mini one, not a big one. Just something that I could not use these anymore, but just come in and come in and just >> [laughter] >> That'd be so nice. But then my second dream is having a trailer for the mini ex, and the third dream is finding a place to store the mini ex. So technically, I just need a full new life and a [snorts] mini ex. excavator It's like one of those movies where the character is like, "This door leads to nowhere." Or if you're watching the backrooms, the new one that came out. I just watched it with my kid. It's like, "Where do these cables go?" I don't [snorts] know where the freak this irrigation line goes. >> [sighs and snorts] >> But I'm going to connect it. I'm going to stub it out here. And that's tomorrow Alex's problem. He'll have to figure out which part of Narnia that goes. We restore balance to this world. Let's start slinging some road mix, folks, before I truly have a heart attack. Tons of road mix. You want to get like 5 to 6 in of this stuff down. Fun fact, this is the stuff that you use when they start paving roads, right? So, it creates a nice compact base. It acts as your foundation, technically, like you would for your house, but for your pavers. So, what it does is distributes the weight, it keeps the water draining, and keeps [snorts] the base stabilized, so your pavers 5, 10 years from today don't start sinking and getting all weird on you. We'll get this in. I'll run down to Tate's and I'll grab a plate compactor. That plate compactor will get everything nice and settled. We'll make sure everything is leveled, that everything is draining away from the house. And then we'll put down some 3/4 in PVC pipe and some sand, and we'll skim it. And then what I'll do is allow for us to have a nice even level surface when we start laying down all of our beautiful pavers. So, road mix is in. Everything is leveled. I like how everything is draining away from the house. I already got the trailer full of our pavers. We got our patterns laid out. I I we have a good plan today. Even the devil can't stand in our way. It's like I don't want to jinx anything, but today we're going to start laying our pattern, getting things started. I'm anticipating a a two to three-day event doing this. Um tomorrow's Friday. I'm taking Friday off, taking the kids camping. >> I didn't go last year at all camping. We have a camper and everything, but if you've been following the channel, I've been stuck building that cabin A-frame in the woods that I did. And that consumed all of my time. So, this year I'm not going to let my kids down. We're going to go. We're going to make tons of memories, and it's going to be a blast. But today, we're getting to work. Let's load and spread and carry, cuz my back's going to be tight today. >> What are these PVCs for? >> We're doing plumbing. Just kidding. Uh this is going to help us level things out. So, by laying this down, this is three crew 3/4 in PVC. I've also used uh galvanized steel pipes, which work so much better, but they're more expensive. And the reason they work better is cuz they don't flex. Anyhow, we're going to lay this down. We're going to put sand on it, screed it, have a perfectly level thing. By the way, everything is nice and level here. And uh screed it. Therefore, when we lay our pavers down, it's going to make sure everything [snorts] goes nice and perfect. Now, I did see other people go straight from road mix >> [snorts] >> and then put pavers down. Yes, you're skipping a step. Technically, there's a bunch of different ways of doing this, but in my experience, that's harder without doing the sand. The reason why is even if a rock is off just a little bit, guess what? Your whole entire level is going to Don't do drugs, kids. 47 and 5. >> You ready to do some real life Tetris-ing? Is that Is that how you say as a verb Tetris-ing? So, we got 305 sq ft of pavers, three different types, because that's what the pattern calls. So, [snorts] you can always buy pavers at Home Depot or any hardware store. Problem is is when you got different patterns, you need to have certain measurements to make sure those patterns work. So, we got here where the exact stone we got, they already calculated in the exact pattern we're going to do. So, it's going to need 37% mega, 37% rectangular, and 25% square. That'll achieve us the herringbone flagstone. It's not a true herringbone, it's more flagstone, but one [snorts] of the things you definitely want to avoid is doing any kind of linear patterns. The reason why is because lines typically like to move. Like hardwood flooring, right? So, you want to start your line and then connect them all out here. You don't want to do that. You want to camouflage the ground, if you will. >> [snorts] >> Let's start dropping them. Just realized this is like almost the same pattern I did on the round [music] fire pit for the smokeless fire pit. Just remember that. Nobody needs to know that part. That's just for me. One there. One there. Every once in a while I like to give you guys some tips that I learned along the way just to make your day go a little bit nicer. And today's lesson is fill the sand wider than the area you need to work with. The reason that is is because when you start laying your pattern some of the pieces might need to overlap in order to trim. So this is going to be a 48-in walkway, but how the pattern goes it goes to like 50 in. Maybe 55 in. And if your sand is not spread out that far you're going to have pieces on the sides start slanting. Exhibit A over there. Just remember that. So something we can definitely fix, but along the way make your pad way bigger than the area that the stone needs to go in and then you'll be smooth sailing. Well, I'm embarrassed to admit this, but 8 hours later I finally figured out the pattern. Versus before I would follow whatever this is like it was a road map from the '90s and 2000s, but it's a lot more simpler than you think and that's really the slowest part. It's literally what you do is you put your big piece down and then you have [music] up and then to the side. So, big piece up. Put these in and then to the side. We go piece here. Piece there. By the way, this pattern's called flagstone herringbone, which I've never done, but uh here we are. Look at us. Boom. And then just to continue it on, it's rinse and repeat. Put this one in and then you spread it out. So, you're essentially working in a herringbone pattern like you typically would except there's three different sizes here for the herringbone pattern. Logic? I think not. Let's get back to work. >> That's tight as a tiger. Should I say to you what I told you? Well, I'm exhausted. Today is the beginning of day three. So, not too long. Your boy's been slaving away at this. Now, here's what we got going on. We got a nice overflow. The walkway is more than what we need and that's because we're going to cut it off, right? So, the plan for today is going to be snap some chalk lines down, do a chalk line for the circle, and then we're going to have the messiest time of the day cuz we're going to have to cut all of these for the desired shape that we're looking for. Yay, us. Okay, we got couple of blades and we don't know what's going to work. So, brand new concrete blades. One is a 5-in, which is not the smallest. They have like I think like 4-in is the smallest. And then we have a big Bertha, the 7-in. Here's the thing. They're both rated for corded and cordless. However, uh my biggest concern is make sure it punctures all the way through the brick itself, right? So, hopefully five will be enough. I know four is definitely not enough and seven, though it will cut through, it's a big blade which will really not have the blade spinning as fast. And if it is spinning fast, it's not going to uh not going to last the battery too long. But, that's the problem that I have to deal with today, not you. 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