Patio Pictures

The day after my last patio post, we dragged ourselves out of bed sometime around 7 am to see the cement mixer sitting outside the door:

Beyond exciting for the kids - this is how they were occupied for two straight days!

The guys used wheelbarrows to bring the concrete around behind the house, where they dumped it and spread it smooth. We couldn't believe how fast they worked!

As it was drying, it looked smooth as glass and almost shiny. I was happy enough at the thought, although I suppose it might  have been kind of slippery.

But we were surprised when, an hour or two later, the guys sprayed off the top layer with the hose, and lo and behold... pebble texture underneath! At first it seemed very rough and scratchy, but a few days later, it was glazed and sealed. Now it looks wet and almost sparkly all the time, but it feels very  nice and is not slippery at all. As we discovered last weekend:

Anyway, here's your virtual tour. Beginning at our side door by the parking area, they poured us a sort of landing pad. Nice not to have to walk out right on to blacktop, as we did before.

The gate used to be there, and I hope to heaven they put it back soon! The yard is no longer "fenced" and I have to watch Molly every second as she tries to escape into the driveway, which we share with a business with vans and trucks!. Here's what it looked like before:

Anyway. From the landing pad, walking along the side of the house:

When you turn the corner, the main patio is tucked in behind there:

For reference, here's a rather poor picture of what it used to look like.

And here is the new patio! Isn't it bee-yoo-tiful??

As you can see, the old rails were removed and apparently they're not coming back. While we liked the coziness before, it feels so much bigger now that it's wide open. Not to mention, easier access to the shrubs will make maintenance much more pleasant and probably more frequent!

Such a nice, new area calls for much better furniture and accessories than we have, so we'll have to work on that over time.

Here's the view of our yard from where the patio chairs are. (That is our neighbors' house back there... a little unusual, I know. They have a very big back yard of their own, so this one belongs to our house.)

 Did you notice the spiffy new landscape lighting they added? It is so pretty in the dark.

The company that did the concrete work is called Allgeier Concrete Drive Inc. They did such a first-class job and were the nicest people you could meet. They were especially good to the kids, and even took the time to pour us a stepping stone and help the kids to make their hand prints. While we were gone on errands, the guys engraved the date and decorated the stone with leaf prints for us.

 I just love it so much! Wasn't that the  nicest thing to do?

We will surely be spending even more time out back now, especially when the weather cools off a bit. I'm sure some of you reading this will be out there with us!