This summer saw a lot of work done on the hard surfaces outside the house. First up was removing the old, mostly buried brick "patio" that used to be in the backyard. Besides being moderatly overgrown and covered by dirt, it wasn't the nice thing and had begun to become a holding resovoir. Mark removed all the bricks and then we spread a tone (several tons) of soil around to regrade the area.

With the regrading came a near immediate end to water in the basement (yeah!). We also took the concrete walk that went from the public side walk to the back porch oout and backfilled and plated over it.

Next up, Mark re-used a great number of the good bricks from the old patio to put in a new walkway from the back porch to the garage and driveway - no more tracking mud into the house!

Soon after, Gerry tore out the old front concrete walk and replaced it with a new walk made from pavers. Finally later in the season, we ordered a load of slate and created a patio in the back. Right now, it looks like a dirt farm because we just started doing plantings at the end of the season. But we used some invasive ivy plants that should cover everything over by June next year.

Lastly, replaced the industrial strength beacon light on the garage with two more period set lights. This went from casting enough light to light every drive in the neighborhood and the entire park to a nice gentle wash on the garage. While the Garage itself is still clad in white vinyl, we did paint the previously blue surfaces the same green we have on the house in a minimal effort to tie in with the lights and the house (the garage didn't look at all like it was for our house before - being white and blue).

Front Walk project

This is the walk after the old concrete was removed. It gives you an idea of the size of it (about 2 1/2 feet wide. Concrete is heavy stuff by the way...

Almost the same shot, excep the outline of the new walk is marked with flags. You can see how much larger it'll be.

Initial excvation. Roots, roots and more roots (both the front and back side walk had this problem). Immediatly to the left of the photo are three big pine trees which decided to go to war with me over this.

Excavation complete (took nearly 7 days!). You can see the burial cable for a future (as of yet not built) front walk light.

The base of crushed gravel, hand tamped into place. About 1/2 of it is down in this shot.

The rest of the crushed gravel, now compacted with a very powerful platcompactor (like a mobile, off-balance washing machine). THe previous layer was machine compacted before the top layer you see here was applied and compacted again.

Top layer of sand (not compacted) has been layed 1 1/2 deep and screeded flat thanks to some square pipes (you can see the ruts where the pipes were). The edging is also installed now. The first course of pavers (near the sidewalk) has been installed.

Same state as the previous picture, but taken from the side walk. You can see the basic pattern and the leading soldier course. A side/edge soldier course is not on yet in the picture, but was the next thing done. You can also see the tedious process of backflling the ruts.

Almost to the half way point.

basically done. The pavers have als been heavily compacted thanks the plate compactor machine. The edge has been backfilled to the soil height.

Same thing, taken from a slightly different angle

And yet another angle...

Back Walk and Patio project

Unfortunatly (or fortunatly, depending on how you view it), we don't have any "in process" shots of the backyward work. Here are some completed shots of the project area

Rear Walkway as viewed from the north (on the rear porch)

Rear Walkway as viewed from the Driveway/Garage.

Mid point of the walkway. Youcan seeit split here for the Garage door and driveway.

The slate patio. It'll look a lot more complete once the greenery grows in next summer.

Where the old rear sidewalk used to go. The grass came in nice and should be prtty well blended by the end of next year.

Garage lights/paint project

Garage with new paint and lights in daylight

Garage at night. Note that normally, the lights are on at about 60% intensity. Whenever the garage door opens though, they brighten up to 100%.

Last updated November 25, 2002