When I was young it was always a treat to visit my grandparents’ house on Spring Hill Avenue.  One reason was the pea gravel driveway.  It made such a nice crunchy sound and the little rocks were so fascinating.

In 1995 I decided to recreate that driveway here at home and bought several cubic yards of pea gravel which I leveled out using the box blade and a shovel. However, it seemed like every time one of us would walk in the house there would be a pea stuck in the tread of a shoe and it would make a horrible grating noise on the tile floor.  I then decided to use all that gravel as a base for a brick patio.

I made several trips to a place nearby that sold clean sand and I hauled several pallets of bricks from a local stone dealer.  The bricks are supposed to be salvaged from the infamous Chicago fire.  I dunno.  I used the sand, gravel, bricks and landscape timbers to create the patio which is now looking quite nice.