zeithound: 1,536 Bricks

Yarn? What's that?

It's been so long since I last made or used yarn that I am definitely showing signs of irritability from fiber withdrawl. I was bound & determined to either ply my mill ends yarn or start spinning my June Spindlers challenge yarn over the weekend. Instead, my major accomplishment of the past weekend was arranging approximately 1,536 bricks on our newly improved patio.

I might have had a few bad moments of hating this project. I might have considered having my own version of a toddler tantrum. More than once. Maybe. But in the end, I gritted my teeth, got through it, and I'm really happy with the final product of this patio makeover. And now I will have a beautiful space to enjoy spinning outdoors for the rest of the summer.

The old patio was made from concrete blocks (circa 1958) that were crumbling and unlevel due to inadequate water drainage (fixed that problem with new gutters a few years ago) and a huge maple tree with strong roots that grows next to the patio (we choose to live around this problem). My husband and I had discussed several options regarding the patio problem, and thought we had settled on eventually constructing some kind of deck. However, we recently discovered a patio resurfacing product that is made from recycled tires and decided to go with this instead.

So, my husband, his grandfather, and I spent the weekend working on the patio. The project started with prepping the area with removing the worst of the old blocks and patching with concrete:

The next step was setting up the border and starting to lay down the grid for the bricks:

Oliver thinks, "I thought you always said no digging??"

And then I got to work filling the bricks into the grid. This was initially fun work, but it quickly deteriorated into a hated task because I had to

re-do the first big area twice in order to get the darker red bricks spread out randomly in the pattern in the right proportion to the other two colors. Having hot and humid weather didn't sweeten my mood either.