Introducing... Our New Patio

Our new patio is finally done, and we're thrilled with it.  There are a few little odds and ends that need buttoned up, but really we're done.

It took KGK Gardening about 5 weeks to complete.  From design through construction, they've been really great to work with.

Our Most Awesome KGK Crew

This is our team from KGK Gardening who built our new patio.  They've moved roughly 400,000 pounds of clay, gravel, boulders, and stone.  They've been unbelievable working long hours in incredible heat and humidity.  Not only have the done great work, but have been a real pleasure to have around.

From left to right:  Tony, Davy, and foreman Rob.

4 More Rocks to Go

We're down to the final 4 rocks and the surface of the patio will be complete.  I'll bet they have those knocked out in a couple of hours.  From there it's going to be about 1000 wheelbarrow trips with soil for the bed.  Once that's done, it will really begin to feel like a patio.

The bluestone patio is almost there

It seems like it's been forever since I posted to the blog.  While there's been a lot of progress on the patio, it's not been terribly interesting from a photographic sense.  The guys have been busy cutting and setting stones.  Getting the stones properly level takes a long time and the KGK team is putting in a lot of care on each stone.  It shows.  The surface of the patio looks amazing.

The guys today worked tirelessly through off and on rain.  By the end of the day, they were soaked, covered in a fine bluestone dust, and ready to keep working.  

They seem to think that with a full crew they might be completely done by the end of the day on Saturday.

Here's a little "bump out" for our grill.  The big pipes sticking out of the ground will be covered and will later serve as forms for concrete footers when we decide on a design for a cedar arbor over the grill.

Laura and Me sitting on the wall...

Well, since it's been so long between posts, I thought I'd toss another one in there.

This photo was taken by Phil Long early on in the construction process.

The Bluestone Continues

Yesterday the guys worked tirelessly and through the rain fitting stone after stone. It sounds like they are going to spend the day today setting and leveling as much of the bluestone as they can. Right now the stones are in, but not yet level.

Also, the lighting fixtures arrived and are even better than we were hoping.

The Bluestone Begins to Take Shape

They've been laying the bluestone for a couple of days and you can really see the patio beginning to take shape.  There are still a lot of odds and ends to get done, but the guys are making quick progress.  

Here the stones are being cut and shaped to size, but they aren't set yet.  Once the patio is entirely laid out, they will then go back and set the stones so they don't move and slope slightly away from the house.

Hillbilly Grillin

I miss my deck and can't wait to get this grill back to the new patio.

The Bluestones are here!! The Bluestones are here!!

Another big day for the new patio.  The remaining boulders and all of the heavy equipment are gone.  The patio got the final screed and the bluestone arrived.  Three big pallets of it.  Many of the stones are taller than I am.  We really can't wait to see how it looks when it's all down.  Rob said it would be about 2 and a half days to lay the stone.  During that time, it must feel like we go from project to patio.  The summer has been beautiful, we really miss having a place to sit outside.

Also, see the photo of the damage the front lawn has taken as it's endured countless trips back and forth between the patio and the driveway.

The patio has its shape

Well, after almost 4 weeks, the wall is complete.  There are 2 sets of steps (one more to go).  We are really thrilled with the way its turning out.  Tomorrow we should have some of the bluestone that's going to comprise the patio surface.

Another 40 Tons

This photo puts us at 80 tons of gravel to support the patio.  It's hard to believe we've consumed 80 tons of anything.  I really want to hear what the total weight of everything in total is.  It looks like we're doing a 2 tiered patio.  We're not.  That's just where they ended for the day.

40 Tons of stone today

Today the KGK guys installed 40 tons of stone to begin to bring the level of the surface up to finish grade. I guess that's about 20 truckloads. The poor guys were out working on the the hottest day of the year. Note the 12" corrugated pipe in the background. That's for concrete forms for an arbor that will eventually go over the grill. We think we're going to wait on the arbor until we get a feeling for how we will use the patio. But, installing the forms now will allow the arbor to more easily be installed later.

It sounds like they are going to do another 40 tons tomorrow too.

Hi Joan!!

Huge Progress

This was probably the most visible progress made in a single day. In addition to completing the circular part of the patio wall, they got most of the work done on the steps.

Check out the photo of the rock at the apex of the circle. That's a hole from the quarry where they would have dropped dynamite. When we saw the hole, we knew it had to be visible in the project somehow. Rob and Dave, the guys from KGK did a great job.

More Boulders and A Lot of Rain

The rain slowed progress again, but we sure ended up with a lot more boulders.

The Wall Continues

Before the rain hit today, they were able to get a lot of rocks placed. The retaining wall has at least the first course outlining the bigger part of the patio. I'm a little worried about the water that remains below the drain.

Photo 1 - The backyard grading starts to take place

Photo 2 - Drainage doesn't look quite right

Photo 3 - They made a lot of progress on the wall

Just a little more wall

Last week was a very slow week for visible progress. We only had a handful of boulders placed. The wall grew a little, but not a lot. They got lots of work done on the stuff you don't really see like drainage, grading and foundation for the wall. I expect with that out of the way, we'll see a lot of progress this week.

The rain has slowed us down

It rained yesterday. It's really slowed the project as work had to stop on Monday and today the job site was a muddy mess. They should be back at it tomorrow. Before the rain hit on Monday, they were able to install some drainage, mostly temporary to divert the rain. Also we received another truckload of boulders.

One of the boulders shows the drill hole from when it was quarried. I am tempted to ask Rob to make sure that it shows. What do you think? Hide it or show it?

The Wall Starts to Take Shape

The guys worked this Saturday, and worked hard. They made quite a lot of progress and you can really begin to see what the wall will look like. We knew it would be quite high, but wow. We really can't wait to see what this looks like when it's all put together.

Construction begins

We've spent so many weeks tearing things apart that it feels even better to have started to see them go back together again. It's going to be a long project, however, the stones by the back door are now in place.

Yesterday, I got to meet our foreman, Rob. With a project of this size, it's nice to get to work someone who instills such confidence.

What have we gotten ourselves into?

Tonight we got home from work to find that KGK has made a lot more progress. Yesterday I thought they had dug out as much as one could imagine, but today they kept digging. That's one huge pile of dirt!! I guess this really is going to be a full foundation. While it's shocking now, I'll bet this patio will last for years to come.

In addition to all of the excavation, the boulders that will comprise the retaining wall showed up. We asked for massive rocks, but I'm shocked

how big these rocks are. No doubt they will be able to hold the load of the patio.

Excavation!!!

It appears that while we were at work Rob and the KGK team made some huge progress. It looks like most of the excavation work is done and the dirt is in a huge pile. I suspect that we will be out of demolition phase before long and will be starting construction.

We have an outline

Today while we were at work, the folks from KGK showed up to get the lay of the land. They marked the location of the patio with some orange paint. We have a meeting tomorrow morning to discuss the last remaining details.

The last photo is a stitch of 3 photos from the bedroom window, so it's a bit distorted, but it probably gives the best idea of what we're thinking.

The stumps are gone too

Here the stumps from all the trees behind the house have been ground out. It's a complete mess, but it smells great.

Patio construction starts tomorrow. We're really excited to get started!!

Last BBQ for the old decking

So, the back of the house is a complete mess. It's pretty much a mud pit. I took some of the old decking and made some squares so we could still grill. Here I'm about to make some cedar smoked salmon. It's copper river season after all. We think it's one of America's true delicacies.

I dug the rocks you see out of several of the beds to make room for the stumps to be ground. I've never felt so old trying to dig and move a bunch of big rocks.

The deck in the driveway

After about 100 trips, here's the deck piled up in the driveway. Somehow I manged to tear the deck off the house and carry it to the drive without needing a tetanus shot.

The Deck is Gone

Here's a photo of the house with the deck pretty much gone. It was a lot more work to remove it than I was expecting. But about 100 trips to the driveway later...

The house looks so lonely without the deck. We spent so much time out there. We miss it already.

Our to do list is still quite long and we still have a couple of decisions to make, mostly around the electrical stuff, but we're not too far from construction.

The Deck had to go too

To save a couple of bucks we decided to remove the deck ourselves. It was an incredibly strange deck. It was made of redwood, one of the most expensive woods that you can buy, but it was so poorly constructed that it was becoming unsafe. It's hard to imagine how this once beautiful deck came to be. It's no wonder that its structure was failing. We're holding onto as much redwood as we can. It's a shame that so much of it is rotten.