Finally Finished - the concrete that almost wasn’t
May 28, 2008
Posted in: Do It Yourself, Family, House and Garden, Saturday Recap
Tags: Alex, approach, camera, cement, computerized, concrete, driveway, edge, flurry, Friday, gooey, gravel, measure, money, morning, pile, project, recap, Saturday, soda, truck, weather, Wednesday, weight, wrist
Yes, I’m behind - way behind. I really didn’t want to post anything till we got that stupid driveway finished. Then I got busy in other projects and never got around to dumping the camera. But here we are, a post to conclude the concrete project!
The weather had been pretty wet all week, with the weekend looking like it was going to be pretty bad too. But the concrete had been scheduled, and we weren’t going to get it done, and since the weather looked pretty bad everyone was canceling their appointments for concrete. Is that a bad sign or what?
But let’s recap a little, a few weeks ago I had gotten it framed in. There were a few issues, but we worked it out. Then we had the gravel delivered and I set about smoothing it out. It also happened to be like one of the hottest days of the year (not last Saturday, but the one before) and I just about fell over in a gooey pile of nastiness. But I recovered and got it all fixed up.
So then we roll ahead to this past Wednesday. I somehow (probably slept on it wrong) ended up with a very painful hurt on my wrist. I mean I couldn’t even pick up a soda with it. No pinching or grabbing could be done with that hand. I figured it would go away by the end of the day, but nope, it got progressively worse.
By Friday morning it really hurt. This was not good, I’m generally the heavy lifter when it comes to projects and I was useless - I hate that. Standing around looking like I’m lazy.
I did do a few things, but I had to do them all one handed, luckily pounding in stakes can be done one handed. Yes, we ended up doing the ENTIRE approach in addition to our pad. So there was a bit of a flurry to get it broken up and out, framed and gravel put in before the concrete came. Since there were so many cancellations, they moved our slot up a couple of hours.
Alex was so interested in the cement truck, it’s all he could talk about. So he was right there as it was getting poured.
Something I never knew, not only do they measure how much goes in, but how long it takes. It’s all computerized for weight and time, and if you go over…OUCH!
Luckily, my father in law use to be a concrete man so he kept us in check and had us moving right along to get everything done in a timely manner.
So what about the weather? You can almost see it here, but it started raining after we got it all poured in. I was getting a bit worried about it, we didn’t have a tarp big enough to cover it and if it got ruined, that was quite a bit of money to have wasted, not to mention having to break it all out.
Alex and me are working out the corners and trying to smooth them out so it can be edged.
As far as DYI projects go, this one is not one I would recommend for anyone who doesn’t have the right tools. I don’t know if you can rent them or not, but if you don’t have them - don’t try this. There were at least 6 different ones you have to have. Like the one that puts these stress marks in. It’s a brass tool and it floats along the top and runs a deep groove in (in case it decides it wants to crack, it should crack on these marks).
The edger is another one, where it’s curved on one edge to give it a nice rounded edge all the way around.
It did quit raining and everything got edged and smoothed then brushed nicely. We have to wait like 14 days before we can park on it, but man will it be nice come winter when we can’t park on the street. It was well worth the money, and I’m glad I got a chance to do some concrete work (who said that?).
PS - we also had a child who will remain nameless (ALEX) who thought it dry enough to run over it and leave foot prints (right down the center), but hopefully they’ll wear out soon, they weren’t really deep or anything.
Posted in Do It Yourself, Family, House and Garden, Saturday Recap
content rss
May 30th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Looks Awesome! We’ve talked about putting in a pad on the right side of our driveway for additional parking. The space isn’t really big enough for anything useful other then a tree and some plants however the street in our cul de sac is actually our (ours and the 3 other houses built at the same time) private road and isn’t very big, it’s extremely difficult to pull out of our drive ways and maze our way out around cars parked on the road. Of course right now our friends can park on our yard (I know WT all the way) since we haven’t landscaped yet.
We’ll definitely come check out your fancy new cement when we get to Logan. Hopefully you guys will have some free time so we can come over for a visit. OR you can come over to any one of the BBQ’s my parents or brother will be throwing.
Hey by chance (cause I know you guys go to Bear Lake a ton in the summer) will you be going to Bear Lake this weekend? We’ll be staying on Shane’s boat in the Marina, so we should meet up if you are. But you’re probably not.
Talk and SEE you guys soon!
Joeys last blog post..Tales Of The Crib Part 1
June 3rd, 2008 at 11:37 am
[...] as we all saw last weekend, we got our pad poured and finished. Now we need to seal it. Have you been to Lowes lately? Concrete sealer is like $23 bucks a [...]