Haven Improvements

We know every family that has ever lived at the Haven. (Todd's parents built the house) The family previous to us kept things up, but did not do a whole lot to advance or update the property. But, one thing they did was create a sort-of cottage garden look in the front yard.

I like cottage gardens. I really do. They're so carefree-looking and the blooms are gorgeous. I like them best in someone ELSE'S yard. I personally don't do well with upkeep on a cottage garden. And it showed. It wasn't long before we had two overgrown weed patches bordering our front sidewalk. It was ugly. It was pathetic. It was way overdue for a change.

It took some work (cough-Todd and cough-Cameron) to move the few plants we wanted to save. Then came the contractor. We decided to put in a patio -- there's nothing like a little concrete to keep the weeds down! Actually, one weed patch got the concrete. The other got a little bordered planting island and the remaining we started grass seed. We can do lawn.

So I thought you might be interested in the whole patio process. It started with the outer framework. This is one of the guys compacting the gravel they brought in:

Then they framed for a circle with four legs on it. Confused? Stick with me, and you'll see what I mean. In this picture, they're plotting North with a magnetic compass:


(It was more complicated than this -- the rebar in the forms threw off the magnetic compass, so they had to remove the rebar and place the compass again!)

Then they did the first concrete pour. It came colored with an integral dye. Yes, we planned it that way. I must say, our contractor was excellent to work with on the planning of this spot. (He took finished photos too, so I know it was something unique for him!)

(Hmm, shirtless construction workers.... it sounds better than it actually was. I didn't include any of the photos with the 6" of Hanes showing!!)

Then the concrete is smoothed:

So this is the really cool part. Here's one of the guys shaking on a powder. It did 2 things: it hung in the crevices for a dimensional color, and it also helped release the concrete stamp.

Then the stamp was applied to the center of the circle, and tamped down:

Can you tell what it is? (Facebook friends already know -- sorry!)

It's a compass rose! Well, it's kind of hard to see in that picture. The "legs" on the circle are there to create some stress joints (places where it can crack apart without damaging the whole). This way, there's no stress joints in the middle of the rest of the patio. But wait, there's more! A few days later, they stripped the center forms, and poured the remaining sections in concrete (imagine big cement truck here again). After smoothing it, they stamped it with the stone pattern we chose. There were four interlocking rubber stamps for the stone, plus a long strip that filled in blanks on the edges:

That evening -- a HUGE rainstorm!! It was coming down so heavily all at once, and you can see the dust rising off the new concrete. (And it washed away some of the grass seed. I guess we re-sow! Grr!)

And then, another fun part: The dying process. The colors look a little intense here, before the sealing happened. The compass rose was dyed first, and the blocks around happened later. It took him 8 hours just to dye all the blocks -- individually.

The curved sections on the corners are for future shrubs to be planted. In fact, the whole thing will be surrounded by blooming things.

So here's the compass rose close up. I was able to work with him on choosing the dye colors, to achieve a 3-dimensional look. We are so pleased with how it turned out!!

(Ok so I forgot to upload a photo of the entire thing. I'll stick it in a new post!)