I joined my family at Grandma’s beach. She fortunately was able to join us in the festivities and is recovering well from her recent incident. We had a blast up there. The weather co-operated well with play time. I didn’t take a whole lot of pictures, but below is a few that pretty much sums up the good times. I got a LOT of sun.
Ah, poop. Tried to use a slide-show plugin for speed. Doesn’t embed well though.
Click Here for Slideshow.
Me and Dad laid the slate over the top of the previously poured cement cap to complete Grandma’s new patio which was all initiated with the removal of the old to fix a broken pipe. Grandma had previously picked out ‘earthy stone’ slate tiles which we had delivered with the cement. The decision was made to put cement grout between the slate tiles as well as underneath. We placed the tiles diagonally in orientation with the two buildings as suggested to elude to a larger space. Little more work, but I think the end result turned out rather nice. I ran the cement factory and the tile cutter while Dad placed the tiles.
We broke a few pieces, and some came broken. We thought making a mosaic pattern on top of the two steps would be a nice way to use the broken pieces as well as make the stairs more noticable. Grandma had been concerned with the stairs blending in too much at not being seen. Her church had recently installed the same tiles, and they have some trip hazards due to this problem. I was assigned this task. Sounded like a fun little project. It was fun, but also a lot harder to get the pieces all to fit and not look like a mess. I admit, I cheated and cut some of the pieces. We pondered a bit to do this same process for the fireplace, but we opted to just cut wedges for the curve front. Two short hand rails were also installed.
new patio
mosaic stairs and hand rail
fireplace
Well, we worked hard, but we played just as hard. Puddle came along as well. He loves the water… but just isn’t the best swimmer yet. He’s been practicing while playing fetch back at Martha Lake near my apartment. This weekend he was sporting a new life jacket which enabled him to swim all day. Also, having a handle on him was handy while out in the kayak.
The festivities were mild; but we did have margaritas on the beach! There was a group of 8 of us that had biked out to Grandma’s place on the beach. We made smores and hanged out by the fire. Someone had to test the new patio foundation…
Grandma had opted to head up to Aunt Pennys, thinking that we’d keep her up. But the reality was that we were pooped out and were all in bed before 10 pm. She and Aunt Penny stayed up later playing cribbage!
Although the weather didn’t co-operate to fully show off the view; there was a good deal of wildlife action for everybody to see. The bald eagle and the king fisher were spotted; which I think are pretty cool.
I had planned on going up to Grandma’s this last weekend to throw up some skylights to replace the old cracked and discolored ones above the hot tube. Those went in easy, ‘like a lid on a shoe box.’
But there was an issue involving a water leak in the outside water lines. We had hoped that it was one of the lines just buried under the sand or maybe the first concrete slab. Of course, that was not the case. The patio had to go. Might as well replace all the pipes so we wouldn’t have to do this again in a year or two. Turned out, Grandma had been thinking that a new patio would be nice.
We began to break up the cement. Much of the work was down with bars and a sledge hammer.
Mavic was there with moral support only.
Dad always likes bring’n out the old railroad tools. The jack made things light.
We got a little creative with our developed ‘technique.’
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Okay, so the ones we video’d didn’t work, but it actually worked out well.
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I kinda liked the all sand patio…
We found the problem. More of a geyser than a leak.
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In digging a trench for the new pipe, I… hum… found a weak joint in the septic line…
This weekend we pour the new cement cap. New stone tile top will eventually cover the surface. Should be nice when it is all done.
