This past summer we tackled our backyard. It was quite the undertaking because we have four golden retrievers. Why did we get four golden retrievers? Well originally we only got two, a boy named Fisher and a girl named Coral and as the story goes it only takes one time and this past November we were blessed with an accidental litter! Coral ended up giving birth to 8 adorable puppies! We immediately fell in love with them and decided to keep two puppies from the litter. Hence we are now the crazy family with four golden retrievers! Now, golden retrievers are beautiful, smart, and so silly which is amazing, but they are also little troublemakers who enjoy going into our backyard and digging all sorts of holes, crawling under the deck, and rolling around in the dirt. Why do we have so much dirt? Well, last summer we put up an above-ground pool which we enjoyed but it killed our grass in that area. Also, having so many dogs has meant lots of potty breaks outside, which also ruined the grass and led to all that dirt.

THE BEFORE:

When we bought this house we tackled the interior before we moved in because it was a complete gut job. Then two Springs ago we tackled our front yard and added a porch and a new walkway. So, with the backyard being in the state it was and the dogs continually making it worse we knew we needed to tackle it right away. We have a nice-sized backyard which is great for entertaining so we were all very excited to get the backyard fixed up!

We immediately knew that adding more hardscaping would help with our little furry problem and their love for dirt. We already had a deck and we thought it would be nice to surround it with a paver patio to get more hardscape before you got to the grass. I devoured social media looking for inspiration on different paver patios and I kept coming back to patios with really skinny pavers that looked worn and well-loved. They always looked so special and like they were in a secret garden. I saved so many images only to be disappointed when I searched for the sources of said pavers and they were all in the UK.

With my inspiration figured out I hit the ground and went to many stone yards in search of similar pavers. Here in NY, it’s a lot of the same. Two brands seemed to dominate, and neither had anything I was excited about. It seems silly to want to be excited by a paver, but it’s an investment to build a paver patio and it’s something that is meant to stand the test of time. I wanted to love it always and get it done right the first time. At one stone yard, I stumbled upon Unilock pavers. I really liked how nice they looked. You could tell the quality was different because they just looked fancy. Of course, when I went to get a price the salesperson informed me that I had very good taste because they were on the high end of my budget but it was worth it because of how long they wear. I kept shopping around, but I kept coming back to Unilock. They always looked the best in the stoneyards and they had my skinny paver! It’s called Mattoni and we were immediately in love. I kept walking over it in the display and taking shoe selfies to convince my husband this was the paver! Luckily Jon agreed! Once he saw it he agreed that it was the one!

THE AFTER:

Why was I willing to spend my budget on Unilock?

-Quality: They have been in the business for 50 years and you could see the quality difference right away at the stone yards. It’s very easy to walk back and forth between the brands and Unilock just had a richer-looking paver.

-Stylish colorways: I was so tired of seeing the same neutrals everywhere. They were either concrete gray or various shades of beige/tan that leaned very pink. That was not the vision. I wanted a weathered brown and I found that in their colorway called, Sable. It’s perfection and the nice part of the Mattoni paver is that your pallet comes in a mix of colors and some lean more fully brown others look almost whitewashed. It helps give it that antique look. So, before the installers got to work I would go thru the pallet and make sure it had a nice mix.

-They have a Lifetime guarantee! Just make sure to register your pavers on their site!

Why did I pick the Mattoni paver?

-It was the perfect dimension. Long and skinny was the vibe and that was a lot harder to find than I expected. Mattoni is 2 3/8″ x 9 1/2″ x 2 3/4″. It is Unilock’s version of a Roman brick.

-The texture! Unilock wants the brick to look antique and give a distressed look to it. They look like they were handmade and each one is a little different!

-The colors! Like I mentioned above within the sable colorway there was a nice amount of variation. So it gives you a nice blended look that looks like it has been around for centuries.

-The quality! The Mattoni pavers are made with EduraColor technology and are made with 2 steps. The 1st step is the making of the base with coarser pieces giving you a solid foundation. The 2nd layer is the top and it is made of finer pieces of stone that have a higher concentration of color enduring a long-lasting color finish.

It literally checked all of my boxes!

How is it wearing?

It has seen its fair share of life since we finished it in the summer. So many paw prints, dog drool, dog potty breaks, firepits burning, roasted marshmallows, and popcorn for movie nights! It even got a dose of pumpkins during our pumpkin carving and it’s looking as good as new. It has literally been no maintenance!

We are so happy with how it turned out and can’t wait to have many, many, many years with it!