Tuesday, October 10, 2006
When I arrived home from Allentown on Friday I was informed by my wife that it is supposed to get cold and start to
rain this week -- even some threats of snow -- so she suggested finishing our outdoor project while the weather was still nice. That would be the patio under the deck we started on Labor Day. So, Saturday morning Joyce, Philip, Cara and I went out in the backyard about 10 and started digging up the rest of the dirt from under the deck. Joyce and Cara worked on spreading the dirt around some low places in the yard. By about 3 PM we had all the dirt removed and it was time to hook the trailer to the van to get some timber for edging material and sand for the base. I calculated I needed 40 cubic feet of sand for a 2" bed. When we got to Home Depot I learned that they sell sand in 50lb bags, and each bag is 1/2 a cubic foot. A pallet of sand has 63 bags, so we bought a pallet plus 17 bags (4000 lbs!). We loaded the 17 loose bags of sand into the van and the pallet of 63 bags on the trailer along with the 46' of treated 6x6 lumber. Well, my trailer only has a 3500 lb axle, so the tires were almost rubbing on the fenders of the trailer. We moved several more bags from the pallet to the van to even out the load a bit, and carefully headed towards the house (on 10 year-old dry-rotted under-inflated trailer tires -- I was sweating a bit). After digging out all the dirt for the timbers, cutting them, and setting them in place, we dumped out all 80 bags of sand. It was dark by this time.
On Sunday, our kids -- being somewhat smarter than we are -- went to friends' houses for the afternoon and left us to work on the project by ourselves. After a nice lunch at Panera Bread Joyce and I went home and hooked the trailer back up to the van (this time with properly inflated tires!) and headed back to Home Depot. We needed about 240 SF of paving stones, but a single pallet of 12" red river stones has 144 pavers and weighs about 3000 lbs. Since 240 pavers would be well over the weight limit of the trailer, I decided to just buy one pallet and get the other pavers later. When we got home we started to put the pavers down and found out that one of the timbers was set about 2" too high on one end. Once we corrected that we started to set the paving stones. I worked until it was dark and Joyce helped until it was time for her to go pick up the kids from church on Sunday night.
Monday I left work early and came home and worked on setting the paving stones until it got dark -- I actually ran out of stones right as it was dark. After dinner Philip and I went to Home Depot to buy the remaining 81 stones we needed -- only Home Depot only had 76 left. So we bought 76. Joyce and kids also 10 additional bags of sand since it didn't look to me like we would have enough. The weather forecast indicated it would probably start raining this evening, and so I decided to stay home from work today and finish the patio. I basically spent all day working on it, and got it done about 5:30 PM, including a few minutes to try to change the brake pads on my van (that's another story for another day). Joyce bought the extra paving stone I needed from Lowes. So, the small picture above is a link to some pictures of the finished product. It is nice to have this job done, even if we only get to enjoy the work until we move to Texas in a couple of months. Maybe it will help the house sell.
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rain this week -- even some threats of snow -- so she suggested finishing our outdoor project while the weather was still nice. That would be the patio under the deck we started on Labor Day. So, Saturday morning Joyce, Philip, Cara and I went out in the backyard about 10 and started digging up the rest of the dirt from under the deck. Joyce and Cara worked on spreading the dirt around some low places in the yard. By about 3 PM we had all the dirt removed and it was time to hook the trailer to the van to get some timber for edging material and sand for the base. I calculated I needed 40 cubic feet of sand for a 2" bed. When we got to Home Depot I learned that they sell sand in 50lb bags, and each bag is 1/2 a cubic foot. A pallet of sand has 63 bags, so we bought a pallet plus 17 bags (4000 lbs!). We loaded the 17 loose bags of sand into the van and the pallet of 63 bags on the trailer along with the 46' of treated 6x6 lumber. Well, my trailer only has a 3500 lb axle, so the tires were almost rubbing on the fenders of the trailer. We moved several more bags from the pallet to the van to even out the load a bit, and carefully headed towards the house (on 10 year-old dry-rotted under-inflated trailer tires -- I was sweating a bit). After digging out all the dirt for the timbers, cutting them, and setting them in place, we dumped out all 80 bags of sand. It was dark by this time.On Sunday, our kids -- being somewhat smarter than we are -- went to friends' houses for the afternoon and left us to work on the project by ourselves. After a nice lunch at Panera Bread Joyce and I went home and hooked the trailer back up to the van (this time with properly inflated tires!) and headed back to Home Depot. We needed about 240 SF of paving stones, but a single pallet of 12" red river stones has 144 pavers and weighs about 3000 lbs. Since 240 pavers would be well over the weight limit of the trailer, I decided to just buy one pallet and get the other pavers later. When we got home we started to put the pavers down and found out that one of the timbers was set about 2" too high on one end. Once we corrected that we started to set the paving stones. I worked until it was dark and Joyce helped until it was time for her to go pick up the kids from church on Sunday night.
Monday I left work early and came home and worked on setting the paving stones until it got dark -- I actually ran out of stones right as it was dark. After dinner Philip and I went to Home Depot to buy the remaining 81 stones we needed -- only Home Depot only had 76 left. So we bought 76. Joyce and kids also 10 additional bags of sand since it didn't look to me like we would have enough. The weather forecast indicated it would probably start raining this evening, and so I decided to stay home from work today and finish the patio. I basically spent all day working on it, and got it done about 5:30 PM, including a few minutes to try to change the brake pads on my van (that's another story for another day). Joyce bought the extra paving stone I needed from Lowes. So, the small picture above is a link to some pictures of the finished product. It is nice to have this job done, even if we only get to enjoy the work until we move to Texas in a couple of months. Maybe it will help the house sell.
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