At one point, we had even started digging out the garden section between the house and the walk, and had ordered a "block maker" form for casting our own paving stones (for a pattern that I found more attractive than the ones sold in the local stores) but that's as far as we'd got.
This summer, work finally began in earnest.
I started by pulling up the old back walkway, as well as the 3' side section from the walk over to the dogpen. I got all of the bricks pulled up and stacked out of the way behind my woodshed on a pallette.About 3 tons worth, give or take, something like 1600 bricks.
One of my neighbors works in construction, and helped me work out the slope (1/4 inch per foot) and which ways we could slope the drainage and still have it work. Then he brought over the tractor he had use of for the weekend and helped me strip all the sod off (and dump it on another part of the lawn that needed it). I had originally been thinking about digging down a foot, then backfilling with gravel and topping with stone dust (think coarse sand) to set new pavers on, but he convinced me that the existing base--mostly sand, with a little bit of gravel--was more than adequate. After all, the brick walk had been there for 20 years and hadn't shifted.
I spent the next couple of weeks dabbling with it, getting the bulk of the material to where I had the basic slope using a level and a straight 2x4 (if you pick through the piles long enough you can occasionally find the accidentally straight-grained quarter sawn one) and some idea of the edges. Then my father came out, and we refined the slope. We consulted some more with my wife on the possible design directions we could go in from there, then began the implementation. We agreed that it looked better with one slope away from the house rather than how I had initially started with two slopes, one from the house and one from the lawn that met in a slight valley in the middle of the space, even though it meant that the outside edge would be down about 8" below lawn level. Well, a standard brick is 2-1/4x4x8, and I just happenned to have about three tons behind the woodshed... So we bordered the space with brick.
The lawn edge bricks are on end, with the bricks dug down lower as they approach the driveway and the slab at the foot of the deck stairs. Along the garage foundation, I laid them flat, long sides together, for an 8" wide band. The previously ordered "block maker" form is standard brick thickness, so this border was at the same height as the main pavement area with no extra work. There's another short section of brick from the cellar window to the deck stairs, and a curved section around the tree at the corner of the garage.
All told, that used about two tons of the bricks.
I ditched my old cellar window well (a rusty corrugated metal arch) in favor of one made from 4x8x16 concrete blocks (the solid ones with no holes), for a whopping $5. The squarer shape made butting up the bricks easy, I'd been dreading fitting bricks to the old window well's curve.
My first run with the form was on a piece of plywood to make loose blocks, since I couldn't use it directly in the corner (the window well is in the way, and this is still the most logical place to start, as the other corners aren't square). Once the blocks from that first impression were in place, I could start making block pattern prints directly and the process speeded up.
Getting a rhythm going really helps too, I can now make as many blocks in the three or four hours or so before work as I made on my entire first Saturday.
Since I'm cheap, I opted not to use the premixed bags (since I had nearly 200 bags worth of molds to do) and instead bought a mixer online, and had stone and stone dust delivered. I used the classic mix of 1 part portland cement, 2 parts 1/2" stone, and 3 parts sand, with water to consistency. Using a standard square shovel, I used the 1-2-3 mix as numbers of shovels full of material, added about a gallon of water (or less when the sand was wetter) and got just enough concrete to fill the form.
I think I'd have ended up with a better (finer) texture on the blocks if I had gone with a finer sand instead of stone dust, or been more willing to spend more time working the finish. Overall, I like the effect, and so does Terri.
By the end, I averaged 12 pattern prints a day, +/-, except when someone who shall remain nameless got it into his head to walk over my freshly made bricks and I had to take a break to patch pawprints (he was actually more likely to break corners off than he was to leave full pawprints, but it was still annoying).
As I got along towards the end, there were a lot of spaces that wouldn't take a full mold's worth. I also got tired of the dog leads catching between the blocks and pulling them out of position, so I started filling between the blocks with stone dust as I was waiting for blocks to cure. I've used one section here to illustrate both processes. First, I measured the empty space. Since I don't care about what the numbers are, I just used a stick held off the bricks by a finger thickness at one end, and clamped between my fingers at the other where it met the blocks. (The gaps between blocks are about the thickness of my finger).
Then I transfered that to a partially set mold impression that I made on one of a couple of sheets of plywood I had off to the side.
Once they're cured enough to handle (about a day), I transfered the blocks one by one into the space. Notice that I used the two smaller pieces here to continue into the next smaller space. I would often just break up left over blocks for the small spaces like this, if I had any on hand that looked appropriate.
Then stone dust got dumped on it, and loosely distributed over the surface so that most of it ended up in or near the cracks, including the one at the bricks.
Then the Super Secret Trick--watering the stone dust makes it slide over itself really easily, even under its own weight. Enough that the cracks were now only half full.
But that's OK, as there was enough extra stone dust on top that a couple of swipes with a push broom distribute the rest into the cracks, and what was already there was enough to keep the blocks from shifting from the pressure of the broom. If things were still not quite filled, a couple more passes with the hose and broom soon had everything hunky-dory.
And there we are, all done!
But wait, what's with the missing blocks? Well, to make good use of the space, my darling better half specified a shaded space. Come spring (to give the blocks chance to settle and to make this winter easier to remove snow), there's going to be a pergola over the patio. Stay tuned!
Last updated 9/24/06
© 2006 Glenn S. Lyford, all trademarks etcetera property of their respective owners.