My last post I mentioned wanting to work on a new patio. Well it's finally done!
Here is a quick before picture
The first step was removing the grass and digging up enough dirt to make it level. This was a big harder than expected. I had to recruit my husband to help me otherwise it would have taken much longer than I would have liked.
I ended up taking out TOO much dirt and had to fill it back in a bit and make sure it was all level. Then came the trip to Lowes. I bought a cobblestone Quikrete mold for my design and 4 80lb bags of cement. I'm proud to say I got that onto a cart, into my car, and then into my garage all on my own! Do you even lift bro? Yes, I do!
The next day I recruited my dad this time to help me with the cement. I didn't have a wheel barrow so he had to bring that over so we could mix the cement. This job could be done by one person but having two people definitely helps a lot! One person mixing while the other is putting it into the mold and smoothing it.
One of the first things we did before even mixing was trying to figure out placement of the mold. The are that we are doing was surrounded by other cement and not a normal square shape.
Here you can see we went as far as we could with the mold. We tried turning it a bit and left a little area in the middle thinking we could try to get it to fit by the fence.
At this point we couldn't fit the mold anymore so we had to make the shapes elsewhere.At this point we were hot and tired. It was 90 degrees and had been a few hours. The work wasn't difficult but was labor intensive. For the last area we did the molds on cardboard in the middle of the yard.
You can buy dye for the cement to make it different colors. I bought the charcoal coloring but I didn't measure it out quite properly so you can see that the cement is mostly the light color with a few darker blocks in between. After all the cement has cured for the amount of time recommended (3-5) days it should be set. You can leave it how it is or you can fill the cracks. I don't want to be pulling weeds and wanted stability so I decided to fill it in.
I chose to use polymeric sand. It is expensive. It was $20 for a 40lb bucket verses about $3 for regular paver sand. Everything I have read is that this is the way to go. It hardens and fixes the joints of the blocks. It also helps prevent weed growth.
It reminds me a bit of grout. You don't want it to get on the blocks because it can stain the blocks. I wasn't too worried about staining but I did find it helped to pour it in with a small garden shovel and then smooth it with a paint brush. Then you wet it down. You have to make sure you don't make it too wet because then you wash the polymers out.
Once it was all done and set (72 hours) it should be done! I hope it's done! We moved the fire pit onto it. Not every block was completely level so we had to turn the fire pit a bit to get it to sit right but it wasn't too difficult.
Next up was chairs for the fire pit. I had old wrought iron white chairs that are over 10 years old in my garage. They are a bit rusty but I figured they would do. I cleaned them off and then bought some Rust OLeum Spray Paint. Blue and Orange for the Detroit Tigers. I sprayed the chairs and voila! Nice new chairs. I'm not sure how long it will last, I didn't prime it (I did buy primer & paint in one) but I figure for the rest of the season it will do.
Here are final pictures!
