masonry.

since today was the first non-blistering hot day in recent memory (in fact, i'm not sure if it broke 80 today), i decided that i would get restarted on the sidewalk running from the garage to the deck. i had aborted this project when my parents were here, because even though we had tremendous success clearing the ground, cutting tree roots and leveling things out, the basketweave pattern i chose for the brick pavers didnt work around the sharp turns. today, i decided to give it another shot with a less intricate pattern ... but got equally frustrated when the same problem popped up. i decided i was going to take a brief field trip over to this house on the lake that has killer landscaping and an even more impressive brick sidewalk for a brief tutorial. about halfway over to the lake house i realized the cure for my woes (it hit me like a ton of bricks - heyooooo! pun for fun!) and confirmed it when i saw the sidewalk over there. spacing between the bricks instead of a snug fit against one another. i felt pretty dumb ... i blame it on the heat.

anyway, once i got back i pulled up all the brick i had previously put down and replaced it with the same pattern ... except more spaced out. i got through the first turn and decided to stop for the night:
to brace everything, i backfilled the sides of the brick with the potting soil i dug out of the two huge flower boxes (it was still in the wheel barrow) and spread out a bag of paver base over the top of the brick, then brushed it into the grooves. i am not gonna lie -- it looks really fuckin good. Double E came out and said, "jake, you are really good at this stuff ..." which pretty much confirmed it for me.











i'd say this is about 9 feet worth of sidewalk, which means it's about 1/5 of the way done. see for yourself:
after i took this picture, i put down the rest of the weed barrier (although i still need about 5 more feet of it) and then spread out the bags of paver base i had to hold it all down. when i was finished, i sprayed down the sidewalk with a hose to help everything settle. i may go back once i am done and put a little more paver base on top and sweep it in and then hose it down again ... but the real last step is to cover it in sand and brush that into the cracks ... this fills in all of the tiny air pockets and makes the pathway virtually unmoveable.


oh ... and those little round dirt spots are actually the holes left behind from the paver stones that used to be in the backyard. i filled them in today because i think Double E was getting tired of twsiting her ankle every time she walked to the garage.

that's pretty much all i did today. actually laying the brick didnt take that long once i figured out what the hell i was doing, so i am hopeful that i will have it done by the end of the week by just working on it a few hours a night after i get home from work.