This first picture is all the materials that were delivered by Lowes. The delivery guy said the weight of everything was way over 1,500lbs and he advised me (us) to be VERY careful as we worked. He said he had NEVER delivered an order this large to a house where the homeowners where doing the project themselves. Not very reassuring.
Materials:
Landscaping Lining
2 flats totaling 195 stones
1 flat of 75 bags of sand (40lbs each) 2 bags leftover
1 flat of 75 bags of rock (40lbs each) 5 bags leftover
As you can see from the picture I look nice and put together, needless to say that's not how I looked by the end of day. We started early in the morning, 6:15am, with our first delay by 7am. The bottom of the gate was too low. Therefore, we had pull out the saw and extension cord and cut off a few inches, I'm sure our neighbors enjoyed waking up to a very loud saw at 7am on a Saturday. Other than that we had no more "hick-ups".
About half way through the process I realized that I was doing almost all the heavy lifting while Fred was sitting on the ground with the fan blowing on him smoothing all the sand and rocks and emptying some of the bags. Somehow, this continued throughout the day! What's even funnier is that he was thinking the same thing. Neither of us said anything I guess because we were so focused on making sure that the walkway was straight. LoL
It took us from 6:15am - 4pm, with only a 30min lunch break to Chick-Fil-A for some protein and a big, tall glass of tea to complete the walkway (and a refill). :-p We were grateful to Chick-Fill-A that they were handing out free full size chocolate chip cookies, the sugar gave us a power surge to continue on.
Here are some pictures of us during the process and the final walkway....
Amy and the beginning on lifting bag after bag of sand
Final Product of walkway (angle view)
Once we got back from lunch and reevaluated things we
realized we had over purchased by quite a bit. So, we had to make a
decision....1.) load everything in 2 cars, drive to Lowes, and unload it to
make our return OR 2.) we could do another walkway but in the backyard like we have been
talking about??? We were planning on doing this in the Fall or next
Spring. See, we are into Phases; we are currently on Phase 2 (as this is our
second spring/summer in our home).
We decided....let's go for it! So, at 6pm we started a new
project and yes, we were already about ready to drop from exhaustion and back
pain, but thought as long as we don't stop we'll be ok. With about 2-2 1/2
hours left of daylight we got busy, again.
I gave Fred a sweaty kiss for good luck and enegry and we
started with Project #2 of the day.
Final Product. We just need some flowers. We finished just as the sun was going down!
Like I said as I started this blog. What I looked like at 6:15am and what I looked like at 8pm are SIGNIFICANTLY different, but hey dirt washes off. It may take more than one bar of soap, but that's ok. :-)
**Side note: Sunday morning - We didn't wake up until 9:30am
and Fred literally had to help pull me up to a sitting position because my
lower back was so locked up! My back/shoulders were completely sunburn (didn't
think about that). We were both completely "out of it" Sunday and are
very proud of our work. I also have a NEW FOUND RESPECT for anyone in the
landscaping, irrigation, pool, or construction business. I couldn't imagine
doing this all day everyday.
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