Yard Crashers

Prep work:  turns out the yard is not level. Who'd'a thought.

Great progress is being made in the front yard!  All the research Preston did stated that even if you do this the RIGHT way, there are only 5 steps:  Dig the hole, lay the gravel, top it with a layer of sand, lay the pavers, sweep sand into the cracks.  Done. But it's kind of like when you use the Chilton's manual to fix the car;  remove the old part, replace it with the new part.  Done.  Except they don't explain that you have to remove three other parts to GET to the old part, and there's always a bolt that will break off, and you need a special tool to get the part out, which your local auto parts store will have to special order, etc. etc....when installing the patio, there are drainage issues to consider, and leveling challenges, and whether or not to square the patio with the house or the sidewalk or the driveway (none of which are square with each other), and what kind of gravel to use, and whether or not Home Depot has enough of the pavers you picked out, always something.  But so far, and we are coming down the home stretch, it's been fun and I think it's going to look fabulous.

Preston taking a turn with the tamper-downer. 

After you get the thing all planned out and put the gravel in, you have to tamp it down.  There's a machine people can rent to do this:  these people do not have Frank.  Frank had WAY too much fun with the manual tamper-downer-thingy.  Also he has a big truck, so that made transporting the sand and gravel way cheaper.  I too have a truck, but I doubt its ability to carry 2 tons of sand without getting a hernia.

Screeding the sand

 Anyway, the weather has been stunning-right up until yesterday when it rained, but not for too long-so even though we have to do the patio in between working, we've been able to make great progress.

This part goes pretty quickly, but we ran out of daylight!

 Preston started laying the pavers last night, a back-breaking job if there ever was one.  More back-breaking, for sure, than having to carry them from over from the pallet.
Those suckers weigh 33 pounds apiece.
So I guess it's almost time to repaint the ugly green patio table!

Yuck!