Who Needs An Alarm Clock?!

****This post was TOTALLY supposed to go up last Wednesday, but I was slightly distracted by the arrival of my parents.  Whenever they show up from NC, everything...including posting things I already prepped...goes on the backburner.  My bad!  Let's just pretend I posted this on time...k, thankssss!****


I know I didn’t this morning!  Instead, I was stirred out of sleep by the wonderful hum of a concrete truck!  {Okay, so our first alarm went off at 5am for the gym, but clearly, neither me nor hubby, were in workout mode today.  Whooops!}

Regardless, when I got my lazy butt out of bed today, I opened the blinds to see a bunch of workers prepping our patio area for the onslaught of concrete it was about to receive.  If you follow me on Instagram {retroranchreno}, you saw this picture nice and early!

By the time I was in and out of the shower…the concrete was already flowing!!

It took maybe 25 minutes of pouring and smoothing, and we were left with this.  {Can I get an AMEN for the fact that the truck could pour right into our space, versus the crew having to fill the area via wheelbarrow?}

The remainder of the day, our guy is going to manually create 3 – 5 foot “stones” in the concrete.  The larger sized stones will help make the patio appear less less busy and aid in hiding the joints he needs to create.  These joints are a must and will keep the pad from cracking over time.  After today, the crew is scheduled to come back Saturday morning.  I know the pad will need to be stained and sealed, and our steps and gutter drainage still need to be completed as well.  I can’t wait to see the finished product!

Taking Shape!

First you saw us destroying the old “patio” in our backyard here, then you saw us removing the debris here and finally you heard all about our new grill/gas line here...well, now it’s time for the real patio fun to begin! 

Originally, our concrete guy thought he would be able to start our job sometime this week.  He had one large job on his schedule in front of us, but after that, we were next in line!  {Thank gosh we signed the contract with him when we did, because he said he had a flurry of jobs come in right after ours, and the wait is now 6 - 8 weeks!!  Yikes!}

Anywho, after a couple days of rain we thought our job would start even later, but we were greeted with a very nice surprise on Wednesday morning.  While we were getting ready for work, our guy called to let us know he was on hold with the job before us.  They were having some drainage issues on that property, so he was wondering if it'd be okay to start our excavation process that day.  We were thrilled, and told them to come on over!

After briefly discussing the layout again, we left for work feeling so confident about the job he'd do.  {Seriously, I can't say enough about this guy!!}

Our work day couldn't go by fast enough because we couldn't wait to see all that was accomplished in our yard.  I truly was expecting to see dirt moved from point A to point B...and that's about it.  But no, no, no!  Our stairs were removed {they are building new steps to the porch...our current ones are were a serious safety hazard}, the dirt was excavated and moved to low points around our home that we discussed earlier {didn't I say this guy was awesome??}, crushed stone was compacted/tamped into a level surface and wood forms were in place!

So last you guys saw, our patio area was looking like this...

And now looks like this!!

Hopefully all this progress means we aren't too far from the pouring phase of our project!  Woot woot!

Anyone else step up their home's outdoor game lately?

Debris Be Gone!!

Remember this deliciousness?  {Yes, I still swoon over my hubby…thankyouverymuch!}  Here is a quick recap where we were over Memorial Day weekend.

Well after all that destruction went down, the hubby and I had a lot of clean up to look forward to.  I’m not sure who was dreading it more…me, who knew I wouldn’t be able to handle major wheelbarrow loads, and therefore wouldn’t be as helpful/quick/handy as my better half, or hubby, who knew he’d be taking on the brunt of this heavy lifting.

Lucky for us, we have fan-freakin-tastic neighbors {yup, the ones whose house we painted}, and the hubby volunteered to help us clear away our debris.  {Picture the clouds parting and the sun shining through...hallelujah!} 

We started the process on Saturday morning.  The boys used our two wheelbarrows and loaded up the concrete piles we made last week on demo day.  They made trips back and forth to the dump site until everything was gone.  Clearly, I am not as strong as them so I concentrated my efforts where I would be most helpful.  I cleared the area of all the flagstone that made up the old patio.  The prettiest pieces, I carried to the other side of our house to continue a path we started a while ago.  The remaining bagillion pieces I stacked up in the corner of the yard so the boys could easily load and dispose of them after all the concrete was gone.  {Don’t worry, I kept a handful of slates in case we need them in the future.}

By the time all the flagstone was up, the boys were almost done with the concrete.  I NEVER, EVER, EVER would have thought clearing our disaster area {aka backyard} would only take us a handful of hours, but when you have two strong guys working together, things go MUCH more quickly! :)


Here is what the area looks like now...after my hubby weed-whacked all of our rogue plants growing in the area.

Now it’s time to impatiently wait for the rain to stop, so our concrete guy can get back on schedule and come give us the hardscaping of our dreams!!

Everybody's Working for the Weekend!

Yup, that's right...we {I use the term "we" quite loosely for this one} were busy working this past Memorial Day weekend.  Okay, okay maybe just the first half of Saturday, but still!  A whole heck of a lot got done before we overindulged in lots of food, movies and BBQs for the remainder of the weekend.

In a post or two, I may have mentioned that I despise our backyard, especially the ugly concrete slabs that had become my spray painting backdrops.  Unfortunately our backyard brings absolutely NOTHING to the table, and certainly doesn't make us want to go out and enjoy the great outdoors.

{Least favorite area of our yard.}

 {Close up view...basically where I spray paint everything. :) }

 {Small concrete pad at the top of the steps to our driveway.} 

And because of all the loveliness shown above, we previously called a stamped concrete guy to come and give us an estimate to do some work.  We wanted him to demo our old slabs and install a stamped concrete patio.  {We personally prefer stamped concrete to pavers, but I know many may disagree with us.}  His quote was quite reasonable for the work to be done {let's be clear...the patio we want is very sizable because if you're going to do it, do it once and do it right}, but holy moly...it was much higher than we were guess-timating!  Bummer!!!

He let us know that if we wanted to demo the slabs ourselves and clear away the concrete we could save $1,500.  At first, we didn't even consider this.  Jackhammers and flying concrete debris?!?!  It kind of freaked us out.  But after a couple weeks went by, and we investigated our slab {it seemed to be only about 3-4 inches thick}, we decided to look into demo'ing the slabs ourselves.

All it took was a couple minutes of reading some info on Home Depot's Tool Rental site, and I was sold.  We {meaning my big, strong hubby} could totally handle this!  So when Saturday rolled around, we headed straight to HD and rented an electric breaker...$75 for 4 hours.

Once we got home, we were both pretty anxious about how it would go.  Hubby suited up with long pants, work boots, safety glasses and ear protection....and off he went!

The breaker came with three different bits {I'm just calling them bits, because I don't know what they are really called}, and even though he used them all, hubby had a clear favorite he used for most of the project.  The breaker does all the work for you, but you have to constantly pick up this heavy piece of equipment and move it to the next area you want to break...and occasionally it'd get stuck in the rubble and you'd have to yank it out of the concrete.

Here is a little glimpse at the process...as well as some inadvertent eye candy for my female readers. ;)

{Getting the hang of it.}

{Switching out the "bit" to try a new one.}

{Making progress.}

{For those of you who follow me on Instagram [retroranchreno]...you saw this picture on Saturday.}

{The big slabs are almost done.}

{Trying to clear everything out from under the stairs.  There were two layers under there...one of concrete and one of brick.}

{No more little slab near the steps to the driveway!}

After almost two hours of hard work in crazy heat and humidity, hubby had everything broken up.  He was E-X-H-A-U-S-T-E-D!  No joke...I have never seen him beat like this, and we have taken on many long and exhausting days since purchasing this home.  I am really so thankful to have a husband who could take on this huge task.  I felt so bad that I couldn't help, so I just stood out in the porch and was his "support" while he tackled this major project.

And thanks to all of his hard work, we managed to return the breaker before our 4 hour deadline and even got money back from our initial deposit!  So, all in all, breaking up our old concrete cost us $66.

Of course, now comes the real fun!  We have to move allllll of the debris to a dump area we have near our house.  I am not looking forward to all of the wheelbarrowing we have in our future, but since it's saving us just over $1,400, I'll suck it up! :)

This all brings us one step closer to having an outdoor space we never thought we'd have!!  Woohooo!