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Loading up at the Depot

We finally got a chance to go to the Depot (after trying to arrange this for about two weeks). What was the hold-up? I needed to have 2 people to help load the plywood sheet (actually it ended up being Exterior Grade OSB) on top of the car. And, with Tom (who is 22 months and running, really running around), this would prove rather difficult. So on Saturday, my mother-in-law and Aunt came over and helped us out at home while we jumped in the car for the short ride over to the Depot. We split up and I took the lumber side and my wife the garden side of the store. We also picked up one of those Kitchen

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Shed- by Necessity

Warning: for those hardcore reno viewers out there, this might not make your standards, but I'm posting it anyway. So even though I asked what to do around the house, I ended up out of necessity having to take down our old storage shed (actually located beside our parking spot behind the fence off the lane). This is because the old shed was a POS (no, not "point of sale"...). This is what the old shed looked like. Now you can understand why I described it as POS.. It was rusted and really bashed up from repeated denting from cars, bobcats and feet. None of this was our fault, because as cars used to use our parking area for a

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The breaker is gone!

Yesterday my wife said to me, "I guess the guys came and picked up the breaker..." because in its place (where it was standing for 2 months) only the tarp remains. I am hoping that Peter and the guys from Oriole Landscaping picked it up, because if it was anyone else, they would have had a heck of a time getting it into a vehicle; the thing weighs over 100 pounds! Anyway, I was really glad I could use it although it took a little bit of getting used to. I am sure that the pros out there would think I was crazy not going to a quickcut saw, but the neighbors certainly appreciated that I was not cutting bricks

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Finished-(Or just about)

Well just before we went on vacation, I cut the last stone, dug the weeds, cut the grass and threw down some bark mulch so that we could see what the whole thing would look like done. Or 99% done. I just got a push broom so I could sweep in the "Polymeric Sand" into the cracks and call it complete. Oh and I almost forgot: I have to rebuild the little door that keeps critters from going under the deck. While I was putting down the bricks, I also decided to run some watering pipe under one stretch so I could hook up the soaker hoses on either side of the garden, instead of running the hose back and

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Some more progress; what’s that light I see?

Well, I have made some progress since the last post thanks to working on the cutting in the evenings after Tom has gone to bed. The hardest part of the cutting is that the breaker I am using Here is the breaker; it takes a bit of force to cut the bricks! (also under the blue tarp in the pictures below) is great at cutting large straight cuts, but not so good at cutting the smaller pieces and especially the small triangular pieces which are a large part of this design. So I have had to resort to using my Skil saw with a 7" masonry blade to cut the tricky parts. I've got a few more pieces to cut,

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Posted on May 14, 2007 2:58 pm

Loading up at the Depot

We finally got a chance to go to the Depot (after trying to arrange this for about two weeks). What was the hold-up? I needed to have 2 people to help load the plywood sheet (actually it ended up being Exterior Grade OSB) on top of the car. And, with Tom (who is 22 months and running, really running around), this would prove rather difficult. So on Saturday, my mother-in-law and Aunt came over and helped us out at home while we jumped in the car for the short ride over to the Depot. We split up and I took the lumber side and my wife the garden side of the store. We also picked up one of those Kitchen Design magazines just for kicks (more on that later). I got the associate to cut up the sheet so it would fit the base and we put it on top of a blanket we have in the trunk and strapped it down. Good thing it is a short ride home! When we got home the plywood fit perfectly (probably because I obsessed about the size and repeated the measurements three times before we left for the store.) Then I spent time getting the corners, bracing and walls up. This is the shed with a "moonroof". Finally the next day I got the roof on and this weekend I'll get the doors on so that we can start putting stuff back in. Not sure what will go back in there in addition to the garden stuff (shovels, mower, wheelbarrow) but the basement could sure use some cleaning up so maybe we'll see if anything from there is suitable to go outside.

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assembly, backyard, landscaping
reno
Posted on May 7, 2007 11:09 am

Shed- by Necessity

Warning: for those hardcore reno viewers out there, this might not make your standards, but I'm posting it anyway. So even though I asked what to do around the house, I ended up out of necessity having to take down our old storage shed (actually located beside our parking spot behind the fence off the lane). This is because the old shed was a POS (no, not "point of sale"...). This is what the old shed looked like. Now you can understand why I described it as POS.. It was rusted and really bashed up from repeated denting from cars, bobcats and feet. None of this was our fault, because as cars used to use our parking area for a turn around, they inevitably got a bit sloppy and ran into the shed. Don't ask me how the boot marks got into it; it was before our time in this house. So I waited for a sale at the Canadian Tire and eagerly waited for their weekly flyer to show up with the details. These things usually only go on once, maybe twice a season as they know they can flog them at regular price for most of the year and people will happily pay and endure their (mostly crappy) customer service. I was pleasantly surprised by the service from the store I ended up using (as my local store, with the crappy service) was of course out of stock of this advertised item, and probably never got them in anyway. I showed up with the flyer, ordered it and after a couple of terse exchanges with the "delivery service" (actually only an employee who has a truck and makes some money on the side doing deliveries) it showed up. Taking down the old one actually wasn't that bad an effort as instead of using the Sawzall to cut it up, I tried the drill to unscrew it and it mostly came apart. I did have to take the crowbar to a few bits for some extra persuasion, but it only took about 2 hours to get the whole thing apart. And best of all I called the City and arranged to get the scrap taken away. I've put in the base and have got the bottom rails fixed down. Now the challenge is getting the plywood from the Depot back home in the Mazda. I'll let you know how that turns out. Here is the base with the rails attached. The plastic is to keep the moisture from getting to the floor.

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landscaping, outdoor, Shed
reno
Posted on September 29, 2006 7:52 am

The breaker is gone!

Yesterday my wife said to me, "I guess the guys came and picked up the breaker..." because in its place (where it was standing for 2 months) only the tarp remains. I am hoping that Peter and the guys from Oriole Landscaping picked it up, because if it was anyone else, they would have had a heck of a time getting it into a vehicle; the thing weighs over 100 pounds! Anyway, I was really glad I could use it although it took a little bit of getting used to. I am sure that the pros out there would think I was crazy not going to a quickcut saw, but the neighbors certainly appreciated that I was not cutting bricks at 9pm with all the noise and fumes that a quickcut produces. With all this rain, the grass is growing like crazy! Time to go out and cut it again... good thing it only takes a few minutes now that we have confined the lawn to that small area of the backyard!

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breaker, grass, landscaping
reno
Posted on August 21, 2006 7:45 pm

Finished-(Or just about)

Well just before we went on vacation, I cut the last stone, dug the weeds, cut the grass and threw down some bark mulch so that we could see what the whole thing would look like done. Or 99% done. I just got a push broom so I could sweep in the "Polymeric Sand" into the cracks and call it complete. Oh and I almost forgot: I have to rebuild the little door that keeps critters from going under the deck. While I was putting down the bricks, I also decided to run some watering pipe under one stretch so I could hook up the soaker hoses on either side of the garden, instead of running the hose back and forth across the patio. We'll see if it works when I get it all hooked up. So here are the pictures: This is the shot from the side of the house. This is the shot from the deck. This is the shot from the back of the yard. New sod is coming in on right and the section on left of the path. You can see the wall and the plants we put in front. Bark mulch helped keep the weeds down. I got that shed so I could store some stuff that currently is hogging the basement space. Winston enjoys the backyard now that there is less construction going on.

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brick, grass, landscape
reno
Posted on July 31, 2006 12:21 pm

Some more progress; what’s that light I see?

Well, I have made some progress since the last post thanks to working on the cutting in the evenings after Tom has gone to bed. The hardest part of the cutting is that the breaker I am using Here is the breaker; it takes a bit of force to cut the bricks! (also under the blue tarp in the pictures below) is great at cutting large straight cuts, but not so good at cutting the smaller pieces and especially the small triangular pieces which are a large part of this design. So I have had to resort to using my Skil saw with a 7" masonry blade to cut the tricky parts. I've got a few more pieces to cut, then I can sweep in the Polymeric sand. However, those of you that may have attempted this will realize that these pavers are really hard, so it takes forever to cut through one and since the blade is slightly less than the thickness of the paver, you have to turn them over to cut through the other side. Not the fastest way to cut through these units. You can now see the shape of the lower path and the new sod I laid last week (in the pouring rain). The alternative was to rent a Quick Cut saw from the Rentall store and do all the cutting in a single day or two. The problem with this approach was time (I can't get a full day in to do all the cutting) and noise (my neighbours would be pretty upset). So I have worked on it as I could, putting in some hours in the evening (as long as the daylight holds out) and except for the noise of the Skilsaw (more on that in a moment), really not had to worry too much about how loud this operation got, since the breaker is not really loud, except for the "crack" as it snaps the brick in two. Here is a shot of the wall and some new plants we put in the raised bed in front. I have set up a watering system on a timer that hopefully will come on every couple of days. So Friday night I am cutting with the Skilsaw and start hearing this weird noise coming from the saw. You guessed it; it is kinda busted. Given the fact that it is 20 years old, it is pretty much at the end of it's lifespan and cutting these bricks probably didn't do anything to help. So I went out and purchased a DeWalt saw, (believe it or not at Canadian Tire, not the Depot!), but haven't taken it out of the box yet. I am still trying to coax the old saw through so I can finish the last few cuts before it packs it in. I am crossing my fingers that it will make it through.

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breaker, brick, grass
reno
Posted on June 28, 2006 8:05 pm

OK, so it is taking a little bit longer…

If any of you have been following this from the beginning, you have seen that despite the best of intentions, things tend to take a little bit longer than I anticipate. I always forget that a few things can get in the way of completing these types of projects: things like a full-time job that sometimes requires work in the evenings and weekends; a 1 year old, who definitely requires work in the evenings and weekends (:>) and generally the fact that I am not doing this as a full-time job (although I did many years ago). So I thought that 5 weeks would be enough, in terms of actual time working on this project, it has been nowhere near as long. Fair enough, but many of you ask why not hire someone to do this stuff? Funny, I ask myself the same question many times as I am outside in the blazing sun, moving tons of gravel or cutting 2x4s. I think I will answer that when I have finished this one off and I have some time to rest! So you may not notice much of a difference between this shot I have to cut how many pieces?? and the last post, but those with sharp eyes (and nothing better to do) will see that I have laid all the full pieces on the top level. Just in time for Tom's first birthday party this weekend, which we will be having outside. What you can't see from this angle is that I have also laid the stairs which required me to ask my neighbor Tom who is a retired bricklayer (no relation to Tom the birthday boy), the correct consistency for mortar after I had mixed a batch. He was good enough to help me mortar together the base pieces for the stair after I had spent a good 2 hours chipping old mortar off them and using the abrasive blade on my skill saw to cut them to the right size. (Just a quick note: while the saw trick works to score the pieces, since they are so big (8"x8") you still have to figure out a way to get them to split where you want.) So in this shot In this picture the bottom path shape is roughed in. I changed my mind a bit on the shape after cutting the original to the right. you can see that I have roughed in the lower path and hopefully I will have less cutting here because as you can see above I sure have enough in the upper section. That's what you get for trying to get around using straight lines for everything.

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breaker, brick, grass
reno
Posted on June 4, 2006 7:44 pm

Sun Cloud and Rain

So over the last week, I have worked on the backyard mainly when I came home from work. Come home, eat, put the baby to bed and move a ton of gravel. Literally. I had to rebuild the ramp because when we constructed the wall, there was no way to get the gravel and pavers back to the area near the deck, so I had to build a solid ramp to get the wheelbarrows filled with gravel etc, up the wall so I could dump the stuff. Fair enough. What has become apparent is that we don't have enough gravel (Called HPB, or High-performance base material) for the entire job. So I have to do some more calculations to figure out how many more tons I will need. Probably about 3 more tons will do it. This is in addition to the 9 tons we got originally. No wonder my back is sore. At least today turned out to be sunny. Saturday I got back from Tom's music lesson and some shopping in the morning and thought that the persistent rain which had started first thing would be over soon and I could work the rest of the day. So I put on a windbreaker and a hat and went out, fully expecting that the rain would stop and the skies would part and it would be sunny and beautiful the rest of the day. No such luck. After about 1 1/2 hours of being soaked to the bone, I gave up and came inside. Luckily today was much nicer, So I finished building the wall all around the raised section of the patio, and had to make a quick trip to the depot to pick up a few extra wall sections to finish it off today. You can see the area I just laid today. I leveled the first section near the house and put down some pavers and so far it is slow going. That's because someone has to stay inside (or occasionally outside) to look after the baby, because he although he certainly seems to want to work, he is a bit to short to handle a shovel yet. So I have to load the wheelbarrow with pavers, run them up the ramp to where I am laying, and then pull them out, one-by-one. No problem, as long as we get it finished for the end of the month, in time for Thomas' first birthday party, which will be (as I am told) a backyard BBQ. No pressure! Now the next task will be to figure out how to get the 3 tons of gravel delivered as we still have 4 skids of pavers in the way...

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breaker, brick, grass
reno
Posted on May 23, 2006 8:32 pm

The first delivery (stone etc.)

We started the patio/path project this past weekend and the idea was that I would take the week off to see how much we could get done and figure out how to do the rest in bits and pieces over the next few weeks. I was not for an instant thinking that I could finish in a week, especially given that at our house even outdoor space is at a premium. Here is a before shot (sorry it is a little dark). You can see the sod before I got at it with the (manual) sod cutter. The plan is to rip up the first bit of nasty old sod (which despite my best efforts was even at this early part of the season, sprouting a robust amount of crabgrass) and replace it with a patio. To connect up the patio, the space beside the deck, which currently has old red brick pavers (anyone out there want a bunch? They're free and you can take them away!), and the section connecting to the driveway will be done as well. So I rented a manual sod cutter and that thing would put any stairmaster to shame. You use it by pushing and kicking it under the sod so it only cuts the top 2-3 inches of grass and dirt and (hopefully) cuts a nice swath about 12-15 inches wide so you can just pick it up and expose the dirt underneath. Let me tell you it doesn't always work out that way... Just after the first day. So on the previous Monday I got a call from a buddy of mine who runs the landsaping company who said they pulled some material out of a clients yard and since they couldn't use it because it was sort of damaged, did I want it? Well since the price was good, I said sure. They dropped it off Friday and man those pieces were big and heavy! So heavy in fact that we didn't have a clue how to move them as they were in back of the house and we needed them in the backyard. Wheelbarrow? Not a chance- too unstable. So we went with his recommendation and used a dolly we used to formely move books etc. Wouldn't you know it, he was right! As an added bonus I got a sheet of chipboard cut down so that I could lay it under the dolly and it really did the trick moving those heavy pieces over rough terrain. The final piece of wood gave way as we were moving the last piece into place and we actually shredded a hole through the center where the wheels were. You can see how big the pieces are You can see what has to be filled in with aggregate. Tomorrow we are getting 7 tons of aggregate delivered to put in the patio and paths. Someone has to move it...

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breaker, brick, grass
reno
Posted on May 10, 2006 7:38 pm

Is it a Reno, if it is outside?

Ok, I know it may be a bit of a stretch, but in the spirit of carrying on, I am going to try to document a project we will be working on this summer. We are going to put in a patio, retaining wall and brick paver path. I guess it is sort of a 'reno:' we are ripping out some stuff to allow us to put in what we want. So what if it is only grass and plants (not drywall and studs)... For those who haven't seen, I constructed a two-level deck In this picture the deck is about 90% done about 2 years ago and of course it took longer than I originally thought. Now we are putting in the patio and walk to hopefully tie it all together! We went over to my friend Peter's yard a couple of weekends ago to look at some of the materials he had in the yard and to get an idea of what was available. Too bad the weather was cold and damp. The rain was coming down sideways and we were just able to be out there long enough to take a few pictures and then back to the car to dry out. Now I am putting together a plan so that we can figure out not only what it will look like but how much material we will use.

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breaker, brick, grass
reno

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