Joel Petersen

Joel had zero business fixing that patio, and he’ll be the first to tell you so. He bought a house with a cracked, sinking slab out back, a bank account that said “absolutely not” to hiring a contractor, and outdoor skills that topped out at mowing a lawn without hitting the mailbox. So naturally, he watched four YouTube videos and called himself qualified. Three weekends later, the patio was done. Not level, exactly. There’s a corner that turns into a small pond every time it rains, and Joel has made peace with it, the way you make peace with a weird noise your car makes. But he liked doing it more than he thought he would, so he built a pergola next. Then a deck he had to redo twice. His backyard now looks nothing like the one he bought. His backyard now looks nothing like the one he bought, and neither does his confidence. He writes about outdoor projects as the guy still making it up as he goes no formula, no shortcuts, just whatever actually happened when he tried.