Patio Prep

We spent a very enjoyable Easter with Steve and Chris and with Jon and his fiancee Rachel.  The company was good, the food was edible, and the day went well.  We will have to try the same thing again next year.

Yesterday Rick emailed the contractor who is supposed to pour our new patio in the back yard.  He had not heard back from them yet this morning, so he checked online to see if they had pulled any permits to do the job at our address.  He found no such records, so we both felt that perhaps our patio pour next Monday and Tuesday would not happen.

Then later in the morning, we received a four-word email: "We are on schedule."  That let us know that we were, indeed, on their calendar.  They had said that they would come next Monday to prep the area and to lay in the re-rod.  Then, after inspection, they would pour the patio the next day.

We have drain pipes carrying water away from the eaves troughs. Since the area where the full patio will go is a couple of inches lower than the back of our lot, we want to make sure that the contractor installs drains in front of the doorways so no water pools and gets into the house.  Eventually that might not be a problem if we decide to add a lanai structure, but for now we need to be assured that the water will flow away.  We want to tie the drains in to the existing underground drain pipes so everything flows around the house and out into the front yard.  I hope that whole system flows smoothly with no problems from either the contractors nor the inspector.

This area will contain the patio which will be a rectangle that
goes from one corner of the Florida room out to the northeast
corner of the garage.

Today I started to prep the area.  When the house was built in 1960, a small patio was poured by the back doors.  Concrete barriers were added then or later to enclosed a "sidewalk" of paver stones around to the north side of the house.  Another set of pavers lead a short distance into the back yard.

I removed the remaining five pavers that led
into the back yard.  I think they were added because this
area gets muddy when we receive rain.

While we will let the contractor break up the original small patio slab, we have already removed the concrete barriers that held in the flower garden, and I removed the pavers that led to the back yard.  I will leave the other pavers in place until we take the garbage cans to the curb on Sunday night for Monday morning pick-up.  Rain in predicted, and when I take something to the garbage cans on the north side of the house, I would rather walk on the pavers than in the mud to get to them.  (I am so glad that we put in the concrete so the cans themselves are no longer resting in a mud patch.)

A ditch marks were the concrete barrier used to outline
the flower garden.  On Sunday we will remove the rest
of the old paver stones.

I cannot wait to have a full patio poured in back.  The area has been a weedy, muddy mess for a long time, and we will be happy to have a solid surface that we can use as extended livable space.  Yes, in her old age Gladys is starting to expand, but in this case, that is a good thing.  We look forward to using the area for many years to come.