Design Build Love

So, this was supposed to be a fantastic post about how to lay a paver patio, which you saw a teaser for here.  Sadly, I am not feeling super excited, I’m more bummed.  (Notice… no exclamation points anywhere… this is odd for me.)  Anyways, like I said, I planned to write a wonderful how-to lay a small paver patio, but when I shuffled through my pictures to find the pictures of our process, I quickly realized that the paver pics were no where to be found!  What?!?!?

Serious frantic panic set in as I desperately searched my camera, computer, and Flickr account for our paver pics.  After racking my brain for what could have possibly happened, I finally came to the resolution that there were gone.  Long.  Gone.    I’m an organizing, controlling, list-writing maniac who will never allow something to be “lost.”  In fact, most of the time, my husband won’t be able to find something and he’ll literally ask me where the most obscure thing is and I will immediately know off the top of my head!  So ya… losing pictures is not an acceptable defeat for me.  Thus, I am sad and am left with only a few photos to show  y’all:

When we bought the house (after some serious ground cover clearing)…

After Tree Removal…

The only paver-progress photos we have…

Pavers down… pre-sand in cracks…

Sand being swept into cracks…

Final view of the paver patio…

Despite not having any pictures of our process, this is briefly how-it’s-done:

1. Dig out ground until desired depth is reached (calculate for paver, sand, and any other material you may use underneath)
2. Once ground is dug out relatively level, use compactor to further level the ground and strengthen the foundation
3. Optional: lay down landscape fabric/plastic under base
4. Next, lay your sand foundation (recommended depth is at least one inch)
5. Use a large level or some other leveling device to smooth the sand (a 2×4 is good for this- as long as it’s not warped)
6. Lay pavers
7. Fill cracks between pavers with sand
8. Rinse off pavers and excess sand
9. Go back and refill cracks where there is a void between pavers
10. Repeat crack-filling and rinsing as necessary until cracks are filled and pavers are stable.

That’s about it folks!  Wish I had those glorious photos to illuminate the process!  If you need a really detailed tutorial and are a visual person like me, check out Lowe’s How to Lay Pavers Tutorial!  It’s worth the watch (and read since there is a written tutorial at that link as well)!

Hopefully in the near future, we will be DIY’ing a nice bench for this patio or score some kind of chair set/bistro set.

Have you guys ever had anything like this happen to you?  (super sad face still happening here)

Yup… it’s official!  Gargantuan (originally seen here) is completely gone, as are his other tree buddies.  In case you’re new to our blog and have no idea what the heck this crazy lady is talking about, you can check it all out in this post.  No joke though… this was a full, more than 8-hour day, process to get rid of Gargantuan once and for all with a stump grinder!  And, unfortunately, when you’re runnin’ a stump grinder, it’s really a one person job… meaning, Eric had to go at it alone while I did other things!

In case you don’t remember, this is where we left off… Eric chillin’ on Gargantuan’s stump after the chain saws (yes plural… there were two of them) broke!

To finish the DIY-job, we rented a stump grinder from our local equipment rental company.  Out the door, we rented the stump grinder for $85 (out-the-door, including the trailer).  This brought our total tree removal cost to… $85!  YUP!  All we paid for was the stump grinder.  Thanks to a wonderful father-in-law, amazing hubby, and some determined chainsaws, we were able to cut some major costs.  The average estimate for the tree removal was over $400!  Ouch!  Ya, we really didn’t want to spend that.

Anyways… back to the stump grinder stuff…  To allow ourselves ample time to get the job done, we rented the grinder on a Friday afternoon, which gave us the full weekend (with returning on Monday) for the price of only one day!    GOOD DEAL!  We figured it was probably a safe bet to keep it an entire weekend in case we ran into issues… which, we did, but those will come later.

So, as soon as the stump grinder was home, Eric chopped off the last bit of the stump (the part he was sitting on in the previous picture), which left us with this:

And then the knight in shining armor my hubby rode in on his valiant steed stump grinder… LOL

Eric saying… yes babe, I DO know how to run this! (Me… “impressive!”  Seriously, there were a lot of levers!)

Only a little grass damage done on the entrance… Naively, I thought… maybe we’ll get outta this unscathed… (remember my naivety for later on in this post!)

Eric, again, looking at me and saying… “babe, seriously, get outta the way. what if this throws wood chips?” Aww… he loves me. Seriously though… I was totally too excited about the big machinery to care about my safety! You know?  Don’t be that way people!

First pass attempt at grinding the stump…

…Not the most successful first attempt. This grinder really took some gettin’ used to. After several hours later, burn marks on the stump (from the blade attempting to grind it), lots of curse words, and a steaming-mad hubby… Eric got the hang of it!

DISCLAIMER: I have to throw this in, in Eric’s defense.  He is very mechanically-inclined, so if you are planning to attempt to do this too, make sure you allow yourself some time to get “used to” the machine (even if you, too, are “mechanically-inclined”)!

Anyways… after all the frustration passed and he got the hang of it, he man machine-handled Gargantuan’s stump and told it who was boss! (Though, apparently, the “boss” lecture involved leaving a whole bunch o’ tractor tracks in our grass.)  Unscathed, my butt…

Yes, that’s mud all over the walls of our house (in addition to the tracks in the grass, our house got pelted!)

Finally, things started to fall into place!  Eric became one with the machine and ground Gargantuan into submission!

In the end… Gargantuan was offically… machine-handled!!!

He was soooo proud (and so was I)!

After the stump was ground out, then came the root-digging… See the disappointment on his face.

Well the root-digging proved interesting to say the least. As we mentioned in our other post about why we decided to take out Gargantuan, we were sure glad we did. Look at these roots!!!

It’s probably hard to tell, but some of them are bigger than our thighs!

What a muddy mess this all left!  Safe to say that new grass is in our near future!!!

In the end, Eric felt like he hit a home run. (and yes, that is a natural smile from him!)

Can you tell my man loves him some baseball???

After the WILD success with Gargantuan, we took a quick peak at his neighbor and for the first time noticed a tag on it’s back.  We were so excited about finding out what kind of tree he was, BUT were suddenly set into shock when we researched him online and found out that he was a fast-growing tree that would reach about 50ft. tall!  EEK!!!  That’s bigger than Gargantuan!!!  Sadly, we immediately decided to chop him down and grind out the stump while we had a stump grinder!  This kind’a became a two-for deal.  Eric drug out the chainsaw and had me steady the tree with the rope.

A 1-2-3 count and he was DOWN!

Then the grinding began.

Tree #2… HANDLED!

Both officially D-O-N-E!!!

Afterwards, we went on a final search for roots… who knew one tree could have so many roots?!?!?

How about you guys?  Any big surprises when you set out on your landscaping adventures???