Another Brick in the…..

Patio! You thought I was going to say wall, didn’t you? Nope, this week was all about the Pulp Patio (leveling) project (however, I must say that Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” is one of my favorite albums of all time) and the process of putting back all of the bricks that got pulled for the tree and more importantly, tree root removals. Actually had to have the tree stump grinder guy back out for a second visit as some initial planing of the surface exposed some pretty healthy and still above grade tree stump. Kudos to Rudd’s Tree Service for all of the amazing hard work they did in getting us to where we could start putting things back together. First off was the need to get some sort of semblance of a flat surface, albeit with a slope away from the house. I’m pretty sure they must make some heavy duty and powered equipment for such purposes, alas, we have pretty tight openings to get to the patio area so slightly restricted in that means. So what does that mean, you ask? Well, it pretty much means you end up doing most of it by hand using rakes, shovels, handheld land stompers (a fairly heavy flat metal head on a stick) and a series of tightly pulled rope lines on stakes that you use to identify the high and low spots. We did end up getting a small rototiller (the Earthquake Viper, nice name) which helped out immensely on some of the more tightly packed high spots. It also quickly identified a couple more large tree roots that had evaded the stump grinder and proved to be quite the challenge to get out (hello sawzall and the large metal pry bar I like to refer to as “The Manipulator”!) Oh, forgot to mention, there were a couple sprinkler lines running through the area as well. One was even completely embedded in one of those tree roots and quite possibly may have beed leaking unnoticed for some time. A quick sprinkler system test revealed a whole new water feature in the patio area (let’s call it a geyser) which, while pretty cool to watch, not exactly what we were looking to do long term. So more digging and tracing out of those broken lines to make repairs and then back to the leveling process. Mind you, doing this mainly by hand is not an exact science so the main plan was to get as close to flat and level (with that slope away from the house) and then start putting the bricks back, one at a time following the existing pattern (we did leave a few already flat areas in place so we had something to follow) and mirroring up each brick to the ones around them using stone dust and brick paver sand so they are level to each other in hopes that as we work our way out we’ll be in good shape and have a fairly consistent flatness to them. In the end, anything will be better than what was, a series of dips and high points just waiting to take someone down. The process is a little slow but it is progress and only another 1250 or so bricks to go (good grief)! Posted some pics on the New Pulp and Pulp Improvements pages so check them out if you can.

In between patio leveling and brick laying we’ve also just received the new LVT flooring for the Pulp Game Room so letting it acclimate to the room and going to get busy with that shortly as well. Ironically, we purchased a pool table from someone who was moving and due to their closing needs, it also showed up the same day as the flooring so kind of have it all in the same room and at this point and will just have to do some careful arranging as I install the floor. A couple funny notes, pool tables don’t get moved in one piece (which makes sense due to the size and weight) so what we actually have now is a table base and legs, two bumper rails with the pockets and 3 extremely heavy pieces of slate neatly stacked on the floor. The plan is to get as much floor in as possible and then have them come back to re-assemble the pool table on the finished portion of the floor and then complete the floor itself. This also involves putting in all new felt over the top of the slate so that should be pretty cool. What I found to be the funniest thing, however, it’s actually costing twice as much for the moving and re-assembling as it did for the actual table! Anyway, it’s going to be cool and I have also and will continue to post updates of the progress.

Time to install some brick while I wait for the LVT flooring to “acclimate” (which is a suggested 48 hours). You all have a wonderful 4th of July weekend and we’ll see you next week!