Patio Begins

The 24'x6' patio project began this Sunday. About half way done with the digging... Unless we find more bricks... which could make it a 24'x9' patio. Then we take the truck to pickup sand from the desert, level it with a slope and we will lay the bricks. Pretty excited, but lots of medical stuff on the horizon, so it may be slow going. Fun work though.

Gutters and the beginning of a waterfall

This row of rocks is the beginning of a three tier waterfall, on the far wall and a fireplace on the left wall. If we can find more bricks, the area in front will be a patio with chairs and small tables. Park benches will sit on either side of the little pond at the bottom of the falls. We are in stage one and this is phase four, five and six of the backyard plan. We are looking at a few years here, but it will be fun getting there.

The bricks we gathered from our neighbor will become the back patio, but in order to make sure that those 5,600 lbs of  bricks stay where they are put, we splurged and today, I installed gutters over the front and back doors of the house. I still need to finish the down spouts, but it should divert water as it stands.

Now we just need a good downpour to test if it works. I am not holding my breath.

Free bricks will become a new patio.

Passing a neighbors house, I noticed a large stack of bricks. My neighbor was more than happy to have them removed from his property, and we are going to save a ton of money on the 24' by 7' patio we were planning on building out back. The little Ranger can only hold a quarter ton or about 120 bricks at a time, so it took quite a few trips, but we now have around 1,400 bricks in two stacks in the back yard.

Now the back breaking work begins. I am very glad that I don't have to hunch over laying bricks for a living.

The first load. Too many bricks, the truck did not like it. At 4.5 lbs each, a quarter ton is not a lot of bricks.

This is a few rows less than half of them.

Sulley and Mike in the kids bathroom hallway.

For Christmas my wife wanted to personalize the house. We started by painting aspen trees in the dining room. Then more trees in our room. Finally the kids hallway was outfitted with characters from Monsters University. The next step is to paint Randell the disappearing monster in glow in the dark outlines in the bathroom. Personally, I think the kids will be too scared to use their bathroom and will invade ours. We are still in negotiations regarding Randell.

Mike and Sulley waiting their turn for the bathroom

Sulley, before I fixed his chin.

The dining room. Two of eight trees

The full dining room wall

Our room. I made the fireplace last year.

One of six red cardinals that perch on the trees. No cardinals baseball fans here, we just like the red bird for the color and memories of summers in Illinois.