Newly Stained Patio

We weren't really thinking of staining our deck - mostly I have been sick of painting. I don't know why painting is such a love hate thing for me. I love colors and the idea of making something new with paint but to be honest I am not a very good painter. I am impatient and hasty and sometimes I don't even tape - I just wing it. Needless to say we have some touching up to do all throughout the house. Sorry hub I just wanted it done. 

Laying a patio: Oh boy we're Jimmy Jacked

The last and final step (what step are we on even) is to sweep Quickrete Power-loc Jointing Sand into every crevasse and them use a shaker head (I call the Jimmy Jack) to force all the pavers into a locked positions. Then you wet everything down every 10 minutes for an hour and your patio is as solid as a rock! The only thing left to do was to fill in those edge pieces with halfzies. Because we had an alternating pattern we needed to cut half pieces for every other edge row. We attempted at first to cut these piece with various power tools. It turns out a good ol fashion hammer and wedge did the trick. Hub got so good he could split them with one whack. 

Laying a patio: Laying bricks is the easy part

The beautiful thing about laying your own patio is you get to literally touch every brick that goes into the ground. I think we touched each brick 3 times. From moving the bricks into the trailer, then into a wheel barrow to get from the front yard to the backyard, and then from the wheel barrow to the ground. Gloves were the most vital tool for this job. This is the final post for a 4 part series to get to patio bliss.

Laying a patio: I was not made to dig

             

So far on our patio journey we have purchased pavers see: Laying a Patio: Craigslist Pavers and made a level perimeter see:  Laying a patio: Why do we need a retaining wall?

If you are wondering why is it taking them longer than most...well this is for many reasons and I have come up with the following list of explanations for this endless project.

1. People on pinterest lie about how easy stuff is

2. We have no idea what we are doing so it takes longer to figure out

3. We are working with a very unleveled surface

4. The soil is clay based so hard to move wet or dry

5. We only have time to work on this every other weekend (if that)

6. Our adorable puppy distracts us and we cannot help it 

7. We need to eat every 2 hours so we have to take breaks for that 

8. rain 

Ok so enough with the excuses, here we are in the next phase - Digging and Screeding 

Laying a patio: Why do we need a retaining wall?

The night before we dove into patio laying we had spent 5 hours loading and unloading craigslist bought pavers. See our post Laying a Patio: Craigslist Pavers to see the insanity. We both felt the excitement of getting our pavers and seeing our dream of having a large patio area, we of course wanted to start laying right away. But our patio had to remain in the trailer for a few weeks until we had finished preparing the area. (of course we didn't do this ahead of time, we got ahead of ourselves but that is normal) We had to address the number one issue of having a patio - making it level.