Laying a Patio: Craigslist Pavers

Before

Now that the grass is in we got the backyard "bug" and just want it all done. When we laid the sod we left the right side undone because we planned on eventually laying a patio.  So we spent a few weeks scouring craigslist looking for free or well priced used patio pavers. On a Friday night, we found a guy selling unique pavers. He lived about an hour away but he had 1600 patio pavers plus 400 edge pieces and a good amount of red patio clay called Red Breeze (you use for leveling the ground). We haggled him down a bit, unloaded our utility trailer, borrowed a friends bigger, more powerful truck, grabbed Subway and cash on the way out of town and headed to Denver. 

The phrase "we are nuts" was said a few times. We met our seller and began the customary craigslist check out. Meaning lets check each other out first and make sure your not going to take advantage of me or kill me or my puppy.  Unfortunately, we cannot remember our new friend's name, but he made a lasting impression on us. He first had us finagle the truck and trailer down a narrow ally way. Then he showed us the goods. We were amazed at the amount of pavers he had, we think he grossly underestimated. We came up with a game plan and the three of us, David, me, and Abi (we shall call him) got to work. As we worked, we discovered some connections between ourselves and Abi. Oh how I love craigslist friends. First, I guessed correctly that he was from India. This impressed him as he said "most people think I am Mexican or an Arab." I told him my sister Chelly, (shout out) is currently living in India.  He also had family living in Bangalore where Chel lives. We chatted about the many dialects and languages people speak in India and he compared Tamil (a language spoken in south western india) to the way people speak in the south. He then told us he was a programmer and he mostly worked from home and amazingly enough he worked for the same company David's Dad works for. During our enlightened conversation we moved buckets full of red breeze, and stacks of pavers. This soon became back breaking work and we had constantly switch up jobs of transferring bricks or stacking in the trailer. Abi kept telling me to take it easy and only take 2 at a time. Every time I took 4 he said, "take it easy, this will hurt your back." Abi took a lot more breaks than we did. He was a sweet programmer not used to the Brey intensity and drive. We moved bricks for 3 hours, finishing up around 10pm.



But our job was not over we still had to drive back home and unload. Since we borrowed the truck we had to unload everything in the bed so we could return it the next morning. At 11:30 at night we were again stacking bricks in the front lawn and shoveling red breeze into the driveway. We even washed the truck! Again the phrase was said, "we are insane." I think the most comical moment was when our neighbors came home, looked at us, rolled their eyes, and went inside. We went to bed super late but in the am we were up early to drop off the truck, eat breakfast burritos, and hit up home depot for supplies. We are nuts.