Heat Wave

So the heat of summer has finally arrived, with 5-6 days now in the mid to upper 90s. Of course this hot spell come right after I have officially finished all the stonework on the patio! It also has been a bit amusing because every time I try to get the shade/gazebo kit started, the sky starts to get black, and ominous thunder storms start to roll in. Maybe I should do this every other day, and help keep the drought out of Omaha! Perhaps this weekend I will be able to get every last detail finished before we have our “We Have Been in the House 1 Year, so its Housewarming Time party.” For those that may be interested, that will most likely be held on July 22nd, (a Friday night for those of you keeping score) and I am positive some sort of grilled meat and barley beverages will be served.

The wife and I have managed to enjoy one nice night out on the patio the other night in spite of the oppressive heat. We lit up one of those new anti mosquito lanterns, and just enjoyed being able to be outside listening to the sounds of our “hood, and watching the lighting bugs flit across the lawn. Its those kind of nights that I truly live for, simple little pleasures that really can make a person happy.

As it is, I had to rebuild a whole section of the patio, as we had 9 inches of rain before I was able to get the wall completely backfilled, and the locking sand (really cool stuff treated with a polymer that makes the sand almost set up like flexible concrete/rubber)layered between the bricks. It was one heck of a storm, and it washed some of the sand out thru the retaining wall, and caused some of the retaining wall to collapse. Some of the patio paver stones also started to sink as the sand beneath them washed away as well. The patio kind of felt rickety, which on a stone patio is decidedly a bad thing. Thankfully my old man decided to help out again, and he and I put in a gargantuan effort, and rebuilt and straightened 3 of the walls. We also went ahead and releveled a section of the patio that had sunk, and tightened up the gaps in between the 2 stones.

One interesting point I have learned from this project, is that paver stones should have the lumber rule applied to them, as the stones were not 16 inches x 16 inches as advertised, but rather 15.75 x 15.75 inches. This was confusing, as I had originally planned for 16x16 stones and based my measurements for the retaining walls/border off of that ideal size (the stones in the store display are 16x16, but not on the pallet that was delivered to my house… strange.) Obviously, once you start laying the paver stones, you realize that there is a bit of a gap at the end of each row of pavers that needs to be filled. Thankfully we were able to come up with a solution using smaller paver stones to fill the gaps, and the wife and my mother were able to take another tip to the home improvement superextravaganzamart and find the right size stones to fill the gap. The use of the smaller stones really ends up making a nice pattern in the patio, and I am actually happy with the way it now appears.

I also do plan on trying to get this blog updated more often, and with more then just boring stuff like me prattling on about my patio.
Enjoy!