General > General info Somewhat hot tub related

Working on my backyard

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geekd:
Hey all.

My wife and I have been working on our backyard since late July.  We're slowly getting it all together.

We live in a tiny beach cottage in San Diego, 2 blocks from the ocean.  We have the front half of the lot, and a small backyard.   The backyard was mostly wasted, dog bathroom was pretty much all we used it for.  We finally got the money together to do something with it.  

Here's some pics:

This is the "Before" pic


We had some guys come out and take out some of the driveway, a sidewalk, and all the grass:



We had a slab poured for the hot tub, and then layed some paver bricks around it:


Then we started in on the deck.  It was just my wife and I, and the foundation took about 9 hours of digging, man handling the Dek Blocks, and leveling.  It was hard work.




Then 3 full days of putting the decking on, and 2 full days of laying pavers, 1 full day of painting the back fence.





Next weekend we will put in the rest of the fence posts, and prepare for sod.  Then the weekend after that, we put the sod in, and are mostly done.

We both work full time office jobs, so weekend labors are not exactly our idea of "fun", but it will be worth it in the long run.  We've done all the work ourselves, except the demolition & pouring the slab.  We had a friend help with the paver bricks, though.

We had no idea what we were doing when we started.  I had a year of shop class in high school, 20 years ago, but that's it.  If it wasn't for the internet and forums like this one, we would have had to pay a contractor to do all this stuff.


-geekd

Neil:
OB, MB, PB, IB or somewhere else?


I sure miss San Diego.  :'(

The work you've done looks good! You going to show the finished project?

96SC:
Looks great, I even learned something just by looking at your patio's skeleton.  One thing I couldn't see, did you fasten your deck joists to your house?  I didn't see any fasteners, but my eyes  'ain't what they use to be'.

I couldn't figure out why you had side by side 2x8s (2x10s) until I saw the finished product, very impressive.

If you plan a trip to South Carolina in the semi near future let me know, we could use some expert help. :)

Bonibelle:
Wow! that looks fantastic!  My hubby and I used to love to do projects together. It is especially nice when they turn out to be what you expected or better....Now that we are old, we talk about projects but they seldom get done  :-/  Enjoy!!

geekd:
Neil:  we are in OB.

96SC:  The joists are not attached to the house. The Dek Block people say not to do that with a floating deck.

Thanks guys!

-geekd

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