Project Report Part I: Concrete Pavers
Wauchula, FL - Events of Wednesday, February 6 to Saturday, February 16, 2019
When our park model was delivered last spring, we had it placed on the site in a way that maximizes the parking space on our driveway in front, which means the back of the park model hangs over the back of the existing concrete pad by two feet. We would have preferred to have concrete under the entire park model so the skirting would rest on a hard surface to minimize the chance of "critters" getting underneath; but we had a long-bed, extended cab pickup truck at the time, so we thought room to park was more important.
In the meantime, we traded the truck in on a car that is much shorter, but we're still glad we have the extra space in front to use for potted plants. However, the back of the park model still extends beyond the concrete, so Paul had been thinking about ways to fix that.
Adding a two-foot strip of concrete to the back of the existing concrete pad was one solution, but it would be difficult to get a contractor interested in such a small job. Although it is a small job for a contractor, it would be a big job for Paul to do himself using bags of Sakrete, even borrowing the Co-op's portable cement mixer and recruiting a couple of helpers. Not only that, but it would be difficult to pour concrete in the area behind the air conditioner unit.
Therefore, it was on to Plan B. Paul has been planning to replace the gravel in front of our shed with concrete pavers because the gravel, while attractive and easy to walk on, is so small it gets stuck in the tread of our tennis shoes and gets tracked all over the place, including into the shed and into the park model. With that in mind, Paul decided he would just extend the pavers from the area in front of the shed to also run under the skirting at the back of the park model.
Photo showing the gravel area in front of the shed and the grass under the skirting at the back of the park model
Paul started working on the paver project about two weeks ago by partially removing the skirting at the back of the park model and removing the lattice skirting from the bottom of the front of the shed. More on the lattice skirting on the shed in our next post. After removing the gravel and landscape fabric from the front of the shed, he removed an additional layer of soil to make room for the greater thickness of the concrete pavers.
Paul removing a layer of soil
Paul then leveled the area and put down a new layer of landscape fabric.
New layer of landscape fabric
Although here in Florida we don't have to worry about frost heave like we did up north, we do get a lot of rain in summer. The rain can wash out our sandy soil and cause pavers to settle resulting in an uneven surface, so Paul decided to try a new product he found at Lowe's called Brock Paver Base. These are sheets of ¾" thick x 24" x 36" polypropylene foam that go under the pavers to provide a stable base.
Polypropylene paver base
The sheets of paver base went down on top of the landscape fabric followed by the pavers themselves.
Results at the end of the first day of laying pavers
It took a couple more days working off and on to get the rest of the pavers installed in front of the shed. Paul uses the area behind the park model as an outdoor workshop, and he used to trip over the wood border that outlined the gravel area. Therefore, he made the area with the pavers smaller to give himself more grassy area on which to work...
Pavers complete in front of the shed
...and he filled in the area between the old grass and the new pavers in front of the shed with sod.
New sod in place
Paul then removed the rest of the skirting from the back of the park model and put down more landscape fabric, paver base, and pavers in that area. He then fastened the bottom rail for the skirting down to the pavers using outdoor construction adhesive and reinstalled the skirting.
Paver project complete
In addition to the paver project, we have been going about our usual activities including going to Co-op meetings and running errands. One of our favorite activities while running errands is eating out at some of our favorite restaurants in the area.
One of our recent errands took us to Sebring. When we have to go to Sebring, we frequently go to Dee's Place for a late lunch; but this time we decided to go to a restaurant down the street from Dee's called the Faded Bistro. Margery ate there once last year with a group of ladies from the Co-op, but Paul had never been there.
Faded Bistro has some indoor seating, but most of their tables are outside in an attractive courtyard garden. In addition to shrubs and flowers, they also have a small kitchen garden with herbs, tomatoes, and peppers.
View of Faded Bistro from the street
View of part of the courtyard garden
Lunches at Faded Bistro range in price from about $9 to $14 and include a variety of sandwiches, burgers, salads, and quiches. Margery had a B&B burger (bacon and blue cheese) with a side salad for $12, and Paul had a Bistro Steak sandwich with a side salad for $13. Everything was yummy!
Margery with her burger and salad
So those are some of the things that have been keeping us busy since our last post. We'll tell you about finishing this project by replacing the skirting on the shed in our next post.
