This summer I put in a paver patio. We like our yard, but since our house was built five years ago, we haven’t really had a good place to just sit outside and enjoy it. A patio’s been on the to-do list, but I just never got around to it; so to create some motivation, we established a goal this year to get a patio installed by C’s birthday at the end of August.
We battled some wet weather early on (like the entire month of June), but get it done we did, and with a full week to spare.
I won’t say that installing a paver patio is easy, but it’s not overly difficult. If you like a little DIY, it’s certainly doable, and the concepts are the same regardless of the scale of your project. It just may take a while, and it involves a lot of physical labor: between the dirt, crushed limestone, sand, pavers, and wall blocks, I easily moved dozens of tons of material to get this done. Probably not something to do if you have a bad back.
A while back I received a request to come up with a list of ways to use Mason jars. I’m sure there are hundreds of this kind of post already floating around out there, but we’ll go ahead and make it hundreds-and-one.
I (and apparently, a lot of you too) collect anything glass. Between us keeping the jars from anything we buy and hunting for Craigslist scores (200+ for $20!), we have a lot of glass in the basement. So what do we do with it? Here are several of my ways to use Mason jars, plus some that I haven’t tried yet.
Since we use cloth diapers (not me personally), and otherwise wear clothes that sometime require air-drying, there’s always a lot of stuff hanging in the laundry room. We had some space underneath a shelf, but we also had plenty of empty wall space, and I wanted to rig up something more efficient.
Enter the homemade drying rack. This easy project can be put together over a weekend, and doesn’t require anything more than a few simple cuts, a couple well-placed nails, and a coat of paint. The way I show here is not the only way to do it – if you have a little woodworking aptitude and some creativity, you can modify it as you see fit.
We’ve been working on cleaning up the area next to the barn that went up last year, and I think we’ve just about done it. We put in a couple flower beds, planted grass in front, and I finished a small flagstone patio on the side. It’s tucked back into the edge of the woods, so it’s pretty shady for most of the day, which makes it a nice place to sit during the summer heat. Of course, at this point, we have to wait until next summer’s heat to enjoy it.
The spot where it’s sitting was a little low, so in that sense it was easier to install – rather than digging down and leveling, I just had to add a few wheelbarrow loads of fill and let it slope towards the back a bit. Add a couple yards of crushed limestone on top, tamp everything down, and lay the stone over that. Fill the gaps with some paver sand and water it all, and that’s about it. Not quite as easy as it sounds, but not hard – just some good physical labor.
Finally, we’re in. We officially moved out of C’s shower last week, and into our own. As was the case the entire step of the way with this project, work came in spurts. I’ve had the door up for six weeks, but needed to finish the trim and do a little work on the tile in the curb. This took less than two hours total, and could have been done a month ago, but that’s how it goes. No matter now, we’re certainly enjoying it! I’ve even showered every day since we moved in, which is unheard of (yes, I occasionally skip days if I’m not feeling very dirty).
Mounting the door wasn’t too much of an engineering difficulty, but it will require at least one other helper. It’s one heavy piece of glass, and to keep it balanced and level while marking for pilot holes is nigh impossible for one person to do. This is a good installation walkthrough (with more pictures) if you don’t trust mine.
Assuming your door comes unassembled, you’ll need to mount the hinges first (easy). Then, carefully move it into the door frame of the shower, center it, then make sure it’s perfectly level on all sides. You’re fitting it into a (presumably) perfectly square hole, so if it’s not level, and opens slightly downward or at an angle, you’ll end up scraping a side somewhere, which is bad. And remember to make sure it swings the right way before you screw it in.
When it’s level, mark each of the holes in the hinges, then take the door down. Since the door is so heavy, you need to drill through the tile and just into the wooden stud, which offers much more support. This is not a quick process, as it must be done slowly (took me a good hour-plus to drill eight holes; you’re really grinding the tile versus actually drilling into it). Get yourself a good 1/4″ tile bit (assuming you’re using a ceramic tile – if you’re drilling through glass, you’ll need a different bit) and a spray bottle full of water. Start slowly, and apply even pressure, but don’t push too hard. Spray the area frequently while you’re drilling to keep things cool. You’re generating a lot of heat through the friction, and overheating and/or pushing too hard on the tile may cause it to crack. Just be patient.
After the holes are all drilled, vacuum them out to remove any debris, and wipe the tile down. Most doors should come with plastic anchors – push those into the holes, cutting off anything that isn’t flush with the tile. You’re now ready to mount, at which point you’ll probably need your helper back. Have them hold the door steady and level again while you put a couple screws in (at least one in both the top and bottom hinges). Once the door is stable, you can put the rest of the screws in without help. And that’s really all there is to it.
I started this project last Labor Day, so it took a solid nine months, but I think we’d all agree it was worth it!
