So, I’ bet you are just dying to know how the patio is shaping up. Let me tell you. It’s great. I’m totally in love with it and cannot wait to have it done. But I’ll tell you this: There’s a reason last time I did this, it wasn’t alone. Patios are super heavy. Everything about them is hard and heavy. Digging, raking, carrying, dropping, loading, unloading, setting…On the upside, I’m getting a killer tan and my back and arms are looking fab.
Here’s the progress I’ve made. For starters, I stripped out the area and spray painted a boarder on the ground. Then I leveled the dirt…approximately. Next was my first trip to Menard’s for this project for sand and edgers. The sand was so heavy I had to bring it home in two trips.
I brought all the edgers home in one trip and sloppily set them around the boarder.
Next things got a little harder. {Like lifting all that wasn’t hard enough.} I set and leveled each edger. Once they were in place it was time to pour all that sand inside. You have to have some sand in there to lock your stones in place and give them a little cushion. Then I made a ghetto contraption to help me level out the sand {it’s that thing with the green board nailed to it.} It’s best to add a little red neck {literally, you should see my sun burn} to all your projects.
Then, it was time to bricks. Aren’t these gorgeous? They’re salvaged from a flood home in Minot. Which I think is pretty darn cool. Here’s the catch. I’m picking them up from said flood home and bringing them home myself. Doesn’t sound crazy yet, right? Just wait. You see, my car is a small SUV so it can only stand to carry a few hundred at a time. So I’ll be making several trips. On top of that, the bricks are just in a big pile, so I have to pick through and get the good ones…which is also a battle against mosquitoes. Oh yes, and my yard looks like this:
Park in the driveway, walk up those steps, then to the patio. It really blows. The upside is that once the bricks are up there they set in pretty easily. As I said, it’s just a whole lot of strenuous, manual labor. Oh well. I’ll just have to show you my arms later.
Oh yeah, and I’ll mention this too…I’m hoping the whole thing can be laid by next Wednesday so I can start adding furniture and finishes! That is, if I can haul all those bricks home. I just may have to bribe one of the high school boys from youth group to help me…we’ll see.
Amy
