86'n It

The next lovely DIY Renovator to be in my guest chair is the amazing Meryl from The Picardy Project. I think I can safely say that her before photos are more frightening, and her after photos more amazing than this ole crack house. Seriously, a room formerly called the animal room? I don't even want to imagine that smell.
The Picardy Project also took on a patio job this summer, with like real pavers and everything. Of course, it looks terrific! Plus, check out those guns in the last photo, totally worth all the labor, IMO. Speaking of checking out, follow Meryl on her next crazy adventure here: The Picardy Project. Thanks!

When Miss Nikki asked me to do a guest post on her fantabulous blog I jumped at the chance. I mean Nikki and Marc bang out some amazing projects while their adorable little Franc 'n Beans toddles around and helps out, so who wouldn't be excited? But then I became the procrastinator of the century, mostly because I wondered what I could write about that would be deserving of all their hard work because one time Nikki went on a 6 mile run in the morning, then mixed like 78 bags of concrete and worked on her patio all day. I know, my jaw dropped too.

Both of us have spent a large part of the summer working on our patios, though ours has gone on just a liiiiiitle bit longer than anticipated. I thought writing a patio post about just how much hard work has gone into it would fit right in with the amazing work ethic of Marc, Nikki and Franca.

So without further ado: Why I Can Now Lift More Weights at the Gym

Working on a patio is hard work. Especially when it covers about 940 square feet (the patio and driveway combined). There is a lot of lifting involved. So let's go over exactly how much we lifted. That's right, we're totaling up how much weight we've lifted, moved and broken our backs over to get this patio (almost) done.

The materials: concrete, dirt, pack, base sand, pavers and polymeric sand.

First up: Concrete

We're being conservative and guessing that we ripped up about 3" deep of concrete over the entire span of patio. There were plenty of places that were thicker (one place was nearly a foot thick), and some places that were thinner, so we figured rounding down on the side of caution was best

Totals: 1 cubic yard of concrete weighs 3000 lbs. Over 940 sq. ft. we ripped up 3" deep of concrete for a grand total of 11.6 cubic yards and...34,800 lbs. But once we ripped it all up we had to lift and heave it all again to get it in the dump truck. So we got to go through all that fun twice

2. Oh my lord we never stopped digging out dirt

We were very lucky that Chris' sister, her boyfriend and both sets of my divorced parents came to help us dig because holy crap there was SO. MUCH. DIGGING. Over about 790 sq. ft. of patio area we dug out approximately 6" and in the 150ish sq. ft. of our driveway we dug out 7-8" and dry, tough dirt is not easy to dig out

Totals: 1 cubic yard of dirt weighs about 2800 lbs. Over the 790 sq. ft. of patio we dug out 6" and the 150 sq. ft. driveway was 7-8" for a grand total of 17.84 cubic yards and...49,954 lbs.

3. We loaded in a lot of pack

Pack is material you spread out and tamp down beneath the pavers. It's called engineering fill or "3/4 to dust" because it's 3/4" rocks down to dust all mixed together and tamped down that provides a super tough, strong base that pavers will sit on top of. If done correctly it makes a strong enough layer that so that the pavers don't shift and move over time. And we loaded in TONS of it


How many tons? Well, 1 cubic yard of pack weighs 2600 lbs and we went through 17 1/2 yards of it for a total of 45,500 lbs.

4. Base sand

Base sand is the sand the pavers sit on

1 cubic yard of sand weighs about 2600 lbs. We went through 4 yards (only 1" deep over the 940 sq. ft. of patio and driveway) for a total of 10,400 lbs.

5. PAVERS!!!

Our first order was 4,112 pavers. But after we decided to work on the driveway also (initially it was just going to be the patio) we needed to purchase a few hundred more


The pavers are about 5 lbs each and we laid about 4,400 pavers for a total of...22,000 lbs. BUT, we had to lift them from the pallets to our work area, then from the work area to actually laying them down in place, so we got to do that fun twice.

And the final step? Spreading out the polymeric sand!

We went through 13 60 lb bags of polymeric sand for a total of 780 lbs. Sheesh, small beans :)

Now, let's total alllll that fun up

Concrete: 34,800 lbs (x2)
Dirt: 49,954 lbs
Pack: 45,500 lbs
Base sand: 10,400 lbs
Pavers: 22,000 lbs (x2)
Polymeric sand: 780 pounds
GRAND TOTAL: 220,234 lbs.

And that explains why I can now lift a lot more weight at the gym.