I try to judo every project: work within the budget and get the biggest change for every dollar spent. These El Sobrante homeowners were very budget-conscious, and there was a lot to work with.
This started as a plan for a large patio next to an unattractive cinderblock guest house in the backyard. It grew into a patio, a new lawn, and a pro-sumer, DIY-style sprinkler system for a property of roughly a third of an acre. Work like that usually runs past $20,000. We did it for about $5,000.
Clearing the ground
The property was heavily divided by fences, with rock-hard clay soil, dead straw grass, and a lot of debris. After emptying the sheds, we listed much of what was in them on Craigslist: lockers, awnings, sheds, lumber. Selling it paid back part of the budget. The trees were trimmed back.
The clay was too hard for a tiller at first, so we softened it with water over a few days and set the tiller’s depth skid shallower, to about five inches. Then the yard was seeded.
A sprinkler system on a budget
Just like paint, a green yard makes an enormous difference to a home’s value. Pound for pound, grass and paint are the cheapest, most impactful improvements you can make.
We trenched 200 feet and laid Rain Bird swing pipe underground. The first layout had three SA-42 heads (70-foot radius) in the front and five smaller SA-32 heads (50-foot radius) in the back, each at 3 gallons per minute. But the water pressure couldn’t power the pop-ups. So we moved one head from the front to the back, deactivated one rear head, and split the system into parallel circuits, with no more than two sprinklers on any line. Instead of a wired, low-voltage irrigation controller, it runs on an Orbit battery-powered water timer in the early morning hours: simple, cheap, and efficient.
The stone patio
The patio was first planned in brick, in a herringbone L-shape. The clients chose instead an irregular stone from Lowe’s, and it took 135 stones to cover about 170 square feet. It’s exacting work: a bed of paver gravel over landscape fabric, gentle grading so rain drains away from the building, and precision cuts with an angle grinder and masonry saw so the irregular pieces nest tightly. Stepping stones will follow once the lawn fills in.
What comes next, and what didn’t
The homeowner, a master furniture maker, will panel the cinderblock guest house in redwood himself. There were other changes I recommended that they chose not to make, which is always the client’s call. The job is to lay out the options and the value of each. Separately, I also rebuilt the interior chimney in their home (see El Sobrante Chimney, 2018).
The result
Removing the debris, installing the patio, trimming the trees, and bringing in green grass cost under $10,000 all told. By our estimate, it added about $90,000 to a home appraised at $600,000. In a month.
Thinking about a yard, patio, or exterior refresh? See how we keep projects stress-free, or send photos for an estimate.
SEO title: Budget Stone Patio, Lawn & Sprinkler System | El Sobrante, 2018
Meta description: A third-acre El Sobrante yard cleared, tilled, and seeded, with 200 feet of Rain Bird swing pipe on a battery water timer and a 170 sq ft irregular stone patio. About $5,000 for the work, and by our estimate $90,000 in added value.
Focus keyphrase: stone patio El Sobrante
