In early summer, the Husband and I decided we needed to do something about the driveway. It was broken in multiple places with some parts raising and some parts lowered. With last year’s rains, it had moved from ugly and mildly inconvenient to ugly and an honest trip hazard. After some debate, we settled on replacing the driveway (and walkway up to the house) with paver stones. That project is scheduled to begin within the next two weeks.
The side effect of that decision, and having just had the house repainted, was me mentioning to the Husband that I’d really like the back patio redone. The old red brick looked terrible. When I said this, I thought it would be a “next year” project. We had the front driveway and the painting of the back deck to do. That’s not what happened and the deck repainting is now scheduled for next year.
In mid-July, the Husband turned to me and said, “Okay, let’s go pick out the paver stones for the back patio. I want to get the job done before Gen Con.” I was surprised but game. He finished it in time. This is all the Husband’s work. The most I did was pick out the pavers, move six wheelbarrows full of stone, then laud the honey when it was done. I’m still in awe of his skill.
This blog post is mostly for my mom to show my dad and to preen over the Husband’s success.
The old patio with the old stairs.
The length of the side of the house the paver stones had to travel in 90+ degree heat.
Stacking the paver stones to work with.
Placing the stones.
Pouring the sand.
Smoothing the sand.
Placing the stone and leveling them once…
Twice. Maybe three or four times.
Here is the freshly done patio without the new deck stairs. There’s a lot more that went into this… paver sand, leveling with a vibrating machine, hand leveling, a chemical spray to set the paver sand so it’s like grout…. And more that I don’t know about. Like I said, this was the Husband. He’s awesome.
Here’s the back patio with the new deck stairs (also built by the husband). At some point, when the rainy season starts up again, he’ll put down fresh sod to cover the areas where he added a French drain to keep the water draining away from the house.
The driveway project foreman doing the front was impressed with the back patio. He said that if the Husband were younger and interested in a career change, doing paver installation, he’d have a job without a doubt. Both of them then laughed and agreed that paver stone installation sucked and was a young man’s job.
I think it looks marvelous. Don’t you?
