New Paver Patio

We have a new patio! It's beautiful. Seth has been working hard the last two weeks on getting this done. Last Saturday he and Justin and Frank dug out the base. Digging is not easy work! Here's a picture of the hole they dug: (Seth is covering up the drainpipe in the pic)



And here is the patio framed in. Seth chose to frame it with 4x4s.



Side note: When the contractors were here redoing our driveway, they also redid our top basement step because they saw that it was all cracked (we were out of the state, and they just did it for us without asking). When Seth and Justin and Frank dug out the back, they exposed the bottom it. I see that it's just a bunch of bricks piled, then cement poured on top. Is this how it's supposed to be? I feel like this looks wrong, but I don't know how cementing works.

Anyway, back to the patio:

During the week Seth used Frank's truck (thank you Frank!!!) to haul gravel, then sand, then the pavers. He's been working on it in the mornings before work (he works 3-11 right now, which works out well with building the patio). That truck was seriously loaded down - we're grateful that Frank let us borrow it. Seth must be super sore from all the shoveling all week.

After shoveling the sand onto it, Seth used a 2x4 to even it out.


Home Depot was supposed to deliver the pavers last Wednesday, but the guy who was our contact didn't show up to work. When Seth talked to him on Thursday, the guy said they couldn't be delivered until Friday. Well, Seth really wanted to get started, so he just used Frank's truck to haul them back. We didn't finish laying them on Thursday, so we stacked the remainder in the driveway before returning Frank's truck. (It was a LOT of pavers! A skid and a half)



And here is Seth putting in the first corner:

Finished!

Well, finished, round 1. After looking at it the next day, Seth decided that it was too wavy and uneven. So he took every stone out and relaid the whole thing, this time using EMT rails and a 2x4 to level the sand.


Here is finished, round 2:

We still have to sweep sand over the whole thing to lock the pavers in place. But it's wonderful! I'm looking forward to grilling on it. (we'll also be fixing the rest of the yard, but one step at a time).

Check out the kayak rack Seth built

He's awesome. I was so impressed when this was finished. We bought a couple of pressure treated 6x6s, some 2x4s, huge bolts, and fence post holders from Home Depot. He cut the pieces with his reciprocating saw, which didn't make the most accurate cuts, but it works (and we have a circular saw now). At first, he wanted to use metal L brackets to hold the "shelves" up, but the guy at Home Depot thought they would rust (although their picnic tables use metal brackets, but the wood braces work).



In his planning, he kind of wanted the shelves to be on the front and back, so we could fit three kayaks. I think that he and Justin actually started building it that way, then changed and did this. If Seth gets a fishing kayak, we'll figure something out then. (the red one is his kayak, the yellow one is mine). I just hope we have more time this summer to use them!

Right now the rack is buried (not cemented) in the back of the yard, but Seth wants to move them to the side, where water doesn't run down and collect. Once it's in its final position, we'll probably cement the posts in.

All the trees are down!

I came home from school one day to find that Seth had a field day with the chainsaw. :) He took the trees down before I could get a picture of them up and blooming, but ah well. Here is the state of chaos I came home to a few weeks ago:



and


The flowering trees that were on the right were pretty, and if there were only one white one I probably would have kept it. The yard was just too filled and messy and unkempt for me to want to keep anything. The Christmas tree you see downed on the left definitely had to go. The tall Dr. Suess tree the ladder is leaning against was another definite gotta-go. Trees had been trimmed all weird and sideways and upwards, planted in awkward random places, run into with lawn mowers, etc. So everything was cut down.




Thank you Frank for lending us your chainsaw!!!!

All the trimmings stayed in the front yard until that Saturday when we borrowed Sharon's truck to haul it to the city landfill place. The front yard now looks a LOT better opened up. We're still going to work on the front landscaping, but it's better for now.




You can see the azaleas in front, which are pretty when in bloom (although I'd rather have white than pink against the brick house). I'm still going to eventually replace them with regular evergreen bushes that are a bit more shaped and formal. And we're going to eventually put up a small brick retaining wall even with the front step, maybe with small brick pillars on either side. I don't know what other plants I want in the front, but this is a good start.

This time, Seth cut down a tree

I don't know why, but one afternoon Seth decided to just up and cut down a tree. It was the tree bordering the yard on the side, and I think the neighbor was nervous that we would drop the tree onto her house, but it came down successfully into our yard.

You can see Seth and Justin's very experienced plan of cutting down the tree. :) Justin had a rope, pulling on the tree towards the yard, and Seth was cutting it down little by little. He made sure to cut the trunk in such a way that it fell towards the yard, too. Plus, their highly sophisticated tools of a string and a reciprocating saw. (we're hopefully going to borrow Frank's chainsaw for the other trees).

Well, they got the tree down, but then had to get the trunk down. They took to it with the neighbor's sledgehammer/axe thing, and some more cuts with our saw, plus the neighbors' tree-cutting hand saws.



It eventually came down to this level:

So now we have a big hole with a stump in our yard. Our landscaping jobs are superb.

If you look closely, you can see the chisel that Seth got stuck in the stump:
We'll eventually cut out the majority of the stump, and then grind it down and fill in the hole.

Earlier today we wrapped up the branches, and we'll leave them out Tuesday for the city to pick up to turn into mulch.

Hopefully, now that the weather is getting nicer we'll spend more time getting our yard in order. Oh, and one of these days when neither of our cars is in the driveway I'll post pictures of that, now that it's finished.