Huge Patio Weekend

It was an immense weekend for the patio. An enormous 12 hour day on Saturday completed the laying of the stones.

And we thought it would take 6 hours...ha!

It was very good that Scot was there to help me, or it would have taken me 24 hours. It was even better that Neil offered his time around 10:30 am, or we would have been there until midnight laying stones.

It was a long day.

The heat had a lot to do with it, as it was the first truly hot day of the year. The temperature hit about 88 here, which is 10 degress above normal (it hit 90 on Sunday). That, along with the humidity near 90% brought unusual weather for Central Ohio.

And yet, here we were moving 142 patio stones that weighed 35 lbs each, and over 1 ton of sand to the back yard.

First, we piled up the sand, and began to scree it. At that point we realized that there we measured wrong and that the patio stones were actually 1.5 inches in height and not 2 inches.

That was annoying. We needed more sand than we thought at that point.

The other annoying part was dealing with how the paver base settled. The heavy rains didn't cause it to settle as flat as we originally left it, which is ok, since it settled, but annoying since it often caused us to dig a little channel through the base in order to fit the 1" PVC pipe used to scree the sand. It always looks simpler in those do it yourself guides, doesn't it?

Regardless of the pain, I am estatic to have this done. Scot and Neil were a huge help and I can't thank them enough for donating their time and energy. I definately got in my reps on the 35 lb dead lift Saturday.

On Sunday, Lori decided that we needed to clean up and plant flowers...so we went and picked up some flowers and a set of solar night lights from Home Depot. The lights look really cool and were a good deal, 6 for $50. The flowers have really taken to the top soil, which I am very happy to see. Some have already begun to sprout even while only planted for 24 hours!

Next step is, the steps. Once that's done, I can take my time and build up the sitting wall as well as the side egress/dog "facility" area. But huge progress was made, only a few good days away now.