Pavers Installed!

Jeff and Aaron worked the last two days installing the pavers in our back patio. Yesterday they worked at putting in the rest of the gravel and then spreading the sand. Later in the afternoon, our block had a block party. I didn't think to bring my camera and take pictures, but there was a great turnout. I'm not sure I've seen that many neighbors outside at once. The weather was gorgeous.

Today, they resumed where they left off. They spread out the sand fairly evenly then tamped it.

At the beginning, Jeff carefully laid out each paver and carefully set it.

Then somewhere along the line, they decided to just fill up the whole patio space and then work on spacing, sloping and setting the pavers. There was about a 2" gap along the edge using the pavers as is, so they decided to just add a piece of wood to fill the gap so we wouldn't have to spend a lot of time cutting them.

Jeff sloped the floor down to the edges, so water will hopefully flow off the patio when it rains. About an hour of fussing later, they started filling the gaps with sand to permanently set the pavers.

The bricks look a little grey right now because they're wet. They sprayed it all down to help settle the sand into the gaps between the pavers. They're also still a little dirty. We'll try and clean them more tomorrow.

Tile Almost Finished

As usual, this will turn into a rant about our tile guy. So, he finally came back for two days on Monday and Tuesday after ditching our job for almost two weeks. Yesterday, he stayed until 10PM! It looked like he might actually finish this week, but nooooooo......he has yet another more important customer. He probably has half a day work to finish this job, but we get to wait until next week (or given his usual pattern) the week after.

Anyway, here is where we are right now.

Aaron and Jeff are still working on the backyard, but it's still mostly moving around dirt so there really isn't much in the way of pictures to post. They're pretty much working when Aaron isn't busy with his other jobs and when the weather is nice enough, so they work maybe two days a week. I think Aaron and Jeff will be laying the patio stones soon.

A friend of ours bought a new house and has been giving us a bunch of ferns that we've been planting in our rain gardens. I should take some pictures of them.

Bailey's Growing Up

Bailey is already more than 8 months old. It's hard to believe it's been that long. Bailey is a sweet happy dog, but she still makes it hard for Jeff to get a full night's sleep. She does seem to be house-trained now and was fairly easy to train.

Bailey is like Daddy velcro. She is pretty much always stuck to him.

It's hard to get a picture of Shasta and Bailey in the same frame.
Bailey is about half the size of Shasta.

Clearing Mint

Aaron and Jeff and have been working hard at clearing out the lower portion of our backyard. In the years since we got rid of the chickens the mint had quite taken over.

I hadn't quite realized how much the chickens helped in keeping invasive species like this down. I used to moan about the mud back there in winter, now I can moan about all the out-of-control weeds. LOL

Anyway, a few weeks ago the guys started slowly digging out the mint plants (including the roots). Aaron did most of this work while Jeff and I were sick, but the last couple days Jeff joined the effort. Jeff also trimmed the overgrown bushes along the fence.

Today, the guys started digging out the footings for the chicken coop and clearing the slope to install the steps. Here is how it looks now.

Supervisor Shasta carefully inspected the ditch.

The plan is to go buy the wood tomorrow for the steps and get those in before finishing the patio. Once the pergola floor is finished, we're planning to start work on the chicken coop. I've missed having chickens and I hope we'll be able to get them again next spring.

Bathroom Photos

Barrett of Reiner Tile & Stone didn't show up again today. During the last 2 weeks, he worked a total of five short days. The earliest he showed up was at 1:40PM, and that was on the day where he emailed me the night before and told me he'd be arriving at 9AM. Sigh. I truly don't understand how someone can run a business like this. I get particularly irked when he sends a text to me at around 11AM and says he's "on his way" and still shows up at 2PM. WTF? If Jeff and I had jobs, it would be impossible to work with Barrett because he is so unreliable about showing up when he says he will.

Anyway, the tile is moving along. Here are the photos of the tile to this point.

Backyard Project Plans

We have gotten almost nothing done the last month. Jeff went off to Texas for a long weekend of WW2 reenactment and brought home a cold-from-hell. This stupid cold just won't go away.

We're finally getting better though, so we're hoping to return to productivity. We have two backyard projects we're hoping to finish in the next month, if the weather cooperates. The first is to install safer steps on the back slope; something along these lines. (I'd link the article for the project, but it's no longer there.)

We bought some used pavers off of craigslist for the floor of the back patio. We were originally planning to use salvaged bricks and concrete chunks, but this was just too good a deal to pass up. Since their size is uniform, it will certainly be faster to lay them down. Aaron picked them up in very rainy weather, so they're muddy in this photo.

This is what the bricks looked like in the craigslist ad

I'm juggling so many small projects, I can hardly keep track. I'm hoping to finish lacquering the woodwork in the bathroom this weekend. Barrett (the tile guy) has been flaky as usual this week, but he does seem to be eventually showing up. Late is better than never. I'll post progress photos when he's done for the day tonight.

Slow Progress

One more section of tile installed. I guess our tile guy threw out his back so progress is inching along slowly (as usual). Yesterday, after no showing for 3 days, he finally came and spent some time and laid tile in the shower. Then today he sent an email he hurt his back and wouldn't be showing up today. At least he wrote me this time.

Jeff and I have been sick, so we're not getting anything done either.