Patio Part 2: Shoveling and Hauling Board & Rebar

Today was more of the same (digging and shoveling!), but making good progress. We've excavated the area down to 6"(a little more than that in some places). Once you start digging, it's hard to stop precisely at the 6" point. We've leveled that area off, and in our next installment of work, we will grade it more carefully in preparation for the permeable weed tarp, pressure-treated wood border, and begin adding the 3" of base rock.

Oddly, the most time-consuming (or so it seemed) element was the trip to Piersons to pick up the pressure treated wood we ordered and paid for yesterday. They said it would be ready at 9:30 a.m., but when we went in they didn't know what we were talking about. Alas, we were still able to get the materials, it just took over an hour to gather, cut, and load up the 17' pressure-treated boards. We also learned that rebar is crazy expensive - who knew? And guess who forgot her gloves on the trip to the back lot of Piersons!? DOH!! Such an amateur! Oh well, it's just chemical-infused wood splinters and a little tetanus.

Tying down the boards and driving home was a little (ok, a LOT) dicey, but we're no cowards. We picked a route with the least amount of hills so the boards didn't slip off the rack (which seemed entirely possible). We made it (2nd gear the whole way), but it was exciting whenever we hit a pothole, had a car behind us, or saw a pedestrian fleeing our path.

Check out this amazing dirt pile. Some of this is going to fill in areas where we overshot with the excavation, and some will get mixed in with some manure for the raised beds. I think we'll still have some leftover. Anyone need some topsoil?

Patio Part 1: Sod Removal

I'm (almost) live blogging the patio installation! Well, not exactly live (since I'm not one of those people who can blog on my smartphone and dig a hole a the same time), but darn close.

We're putting in a permeable patio in the backyard in one of the sunnier spots. Currently, it's a nice little area, but it's lumpy grass. So it requires all mowing, all the time. And even when it's perfectly cropped, there are high and low spots (real ankle-turners!). So we're putting in a paver patio over the next few weeks. The steps so far are looking like: pulling out the sod, putting down landscape tarp, 3 inches of base rock, 1 inch of level sand, then pavers, then sand to fill the cracks.

Yesterday was a big work day: we rented a sod cutter to remove the grass, getting started digging the 6" deep x 11' x 17' hole, and taking delivery on 2 cubic yards of base rock. We got a couple inches down, but still have more digging to do.

Per the usual, it's quite the archaeological dig. We've found some weird stuff in the ground: hangers, BBQ parts, dog bones (I hope!) and big pieces of concrete - lots of them, which we're collecting in a very heavy pile. I was thinking of creating a raised bed using the concrete pieces as a border, once the patio project is done.