50 Tons of Gravel, 28 Yards of Concrete

A shot of the new front walk after the river rock . A picture of the patio after we got it powewashed off, the grid may be hard to pick up but its there.

My Dad, Brother, Chris and I puttin in the front landscape edging and riverrock, we got the front and side done, it only took 8tons of MO river rock. And you can see that the house is no longer that ugly yellow.
Painters got going on day 4, thats the primer but its close to the paint color.
Dad cutting the grid into the slabs, this is day 4, then on day 5 I used a blade that cut a v notch in the slab.
After Day 3 no more concrete!

After Day 2, it went much easier than Day 1


The morning of Day 2Rick Roos, also came by and rebuilt my chimney from the roof up. Hopefully it helps my fireplace draft a little bit.
Day One, it wasn't easy, it wasn't pretty, but we made it through.

I hate Pouring Concrete

Rod and Greg reinforcing the pool.
We hauled away 7 dumptruck loads of concrete between the front and back yards. There was actually two concrete slabs around the pool one on top of the other. Here is a shot of the guys forming up the back patio. They thought I was crazy with all of my four foot grid and matching offsets.
I had a little bit of luck, the concrete guys my dad normally uses got rained out on a job and came down and poured the driveway and sidewalk. It looks awesome.

I've made alot of progress in 10 days

Full steam ahead......the pool was a little bit rotted but after some creative bracing and reframing the wood pool is good for another 20 years.
Oops.....not exactly according to plan.
The guys all thought those concrete pavers were very weird.
The Driveway removed and ready to form up.

Well I just realized its been ten days since I've given an update. Alot of things have been going on. I have pictures of just about all of it but if any of you want some more pictures just ask.

Fighting through the mud

Ben and the dingo got all of the concrete around the pool, the side patio, and the driveway jackhamered as well. Next week the place should really take shape if I get the concrete in. Wish me luck.
After one day of drying, You can see they have a little bit of siding on, hopefully after today the will have three of the sides on. Next week I should get alot of conc. poured.
That night we got a good test for the roof. I believe we got 5in. of rain in about 4 hours. This is a shot out my front door looking where the patio was. Thats about 3-5 in of standing water. Needless to say it hurt my chances of getting any concrete in this week. But the roof didn't leak and Brush Creek didn't flood the house - so I'll take a little mud anyday.
The same day they installed the roof, my dad and greg worked on ripping out the patio in the front of my house. Two layers of brick pavers - the bottom layer was located exactly where the plans showed them.

A quick Update

We are starting to dig the footings for the garage next week, and the fence is coming alon nicely. I'll post some pictures of the progress early next week. For now here's a quick post of how I'm coming along with the landscape plan for around the pool. If any of you have any suggestions or any specific plants your really like let me know.

Things are starting to take shape around here

Here are some pictures from this morning which show the current state of destruction at my house. The old fence is history as are several trees who met the fate of a chainsaw. I had the guys take out all of the trees that weren't strait or were leaning over my power line which meant they took out about half of the ones that were there. I've got about half of the patio up and if this snow/ice would ever melt I could get finished. The construction of the new fence is going to commence on monday - were doing about 75% of it now and once the weather breaks and I can get in to remove the concrete around the pool and pour some new concrete we'll push on ahead.

A few quick pics.

Well here are some photos showing the weeks progress. No work is going to happen this week - but I'll try and post some images of the proposed garage. I decided to go ahead and get the concrete work around the pool done, and get the new fence installed since it will be easier before the new garage is in the way for site access. So hopefully if the weather stays this nice (thanks to global warming) in a little over a month I will have a new patio, fence, and garage, oh and don't forgot by then we will have no money.

Where do you stop?

Well here are some pics from the last two days. The porch will be completely gone by tomorrow and the siding on the back of the house should be done as well. The guys found minimal rot in the wall itself but the fascia is a hole other animal. So we've had to be selective with what we replace. Many of the exposed rafters are in poor shape. Originally these overhangs were just for sun shading, there was no protection from the elements so mother nature took her toll. Everyone really likes the way the cedar siding is looking. I wasn't able to track down any pecky cypress in the dimensions neaded to replicate the siding so we opted to mill the cedar to match the profile. Its not the fastest way to accomplish siding but hopefully it will look good when its painted. I've had a few people who think I should re-side the entire house, what do you think? Charlie and the other guys (the crew) think the house is kinda different and are suprised by the way I want to do certain things but all in all its looking really nice. With the porch gone it adds so much light to the house and it makes the backyard look much bigger. I'm working on the drawings for the new garage so I'll try to post something soon.