The Projects - Patio Time

So the wife wants a patio. Yeah, I have been putting this project off for quite some time now, so I finally gave in. This last weekend we didn't have anything going on, so why not build a patio. Saturday I rented the tiller, o.k, attempted to rent a tiller. Turns out someone else also wanted the same tiller. Great, he was going to be done by 3:00. I'll just wait till then. In the mean time we can go pick out the pavers. We wanted to match the sidewalk pavers we put in last summer. Unfortunately, Menards doesn't carry them any more. Strike 2, this project is not starting off well.

We didn't see anything we liked that matched close enough, so we headed to Home Depot and picked out a brick we liked their. We are in business. Problem is, it is getting close to three, and I was supposed to pick up that tiller. Now I have 3 loads of brick and paver base to transport home. Turns out that stuff is a lot heavier than I thought. I am going to need to take 3 loads. I started out with a load of 30 pavers, which is about 1200 pounds, close to the max load of the Suburban. Called Suburban Ace and asked them if my tiller was in? Nope, the previous renter had not returned it yet. "Great" I thought, leaving them to believe that I still wanted it this afternoon, I sounded disappointed, but told them that I would just pick it up the next morning when they open. Knowing darn well I was not going to get the dirt tilled today. I had a lot of pavers and rocks to move. So, 3 loads and ~7000 pounds later all my materials had been procured. For those of you doing the math, thinking what a liar I am, after all, 3 loads @ 1200 pounds a piece is 3600 pounds. Well, the first load I only took 30 pavers. The second and third load I pushed the Suburban a little more and took my 30 pavers, but I also added 35 and 40 bags of paver base each time, this added another 1500 pounds. So There!!! Thanks to the kids for helping unload the pavers and bags of rock.

The next day, I picked up the tiller and my lovely wife and I began to loosen ground and remove dirt. I originally rented the tiller for 2 hours, thankfully, due to the mishap on the previous day, they were very leniant and let me keep it for 4 hours. Worked out great, cause I took most of that.







Well, we laid out the paver base, some sand and started putting down pavers.













Two rows later the tornado sirens start going off. Great, this is going to put a damper on things, I thought. Well, the weather was calm, so we decided to carry on, that is after shooing the kids in to the basement to watch T.V. A few minutes later, the wind was starting to pick up and it started to rain. Guess this is it, lets cover it up. So we found some plastic, coverd up the sand and put most everything away. About the time we picked up the site, the weather calmed down. Great, what do we do now? We were both exhausted, and a break would be great, but we both wanted to finish it. So we decided since it was packed up we would start working on it until the weather drove us back inside. Thankfully enough, the weather held out the rest of the evening and we were able to finish. Sweet, cause I did not want to start laying pavers the next day. I figured I was going to be very sore.

Here it is, my new patio. I am going to enjoy it. Especially not having to move the lawn furniture and grill every time I mow any more. Wooo Hooo. You all need to come over for a little back yard BBQ on the new patio. Maybe we can follow it up by a bon fire.









Catch you all later,

-JbJ