Friday, April 15, 2011

Carl's Shots of the new Patio Project

Ah, life in Mexico...neighbors knock at your gate to chat or borrow money, a guy from Guatemala comes by to test your Spanish with a friendly chat (and asks for money for food), the neighborhood kids come by to ask for dulces (candy), but now say por favor and gracias. And work is pouring in! I now have a part time job creating funeral websites for a company. It's surprisingly fun, not stressful, and pays not badly. So I'm cheerfully -for the most part- busy.

We decided to finish the patio, so Osvaldo brought over the bricks and sand, and Santiago worked his magic again. Carl took these shots throughout the project.

Just prepping:

Reverse angle towards existing patio:

Bricks have arrived:

Up driveway, guestroom on left:

Cloudy day and Santiago has started to rough it in:

Getting close to the water cistern- Osvaldo has a clever plan.

A shot down the driveway:

Brick pile's getting smaller, a good sign.

Santiago's rough placement of the bricks is complete.

The water tank cover and frame are in place. At first the cover was bouncy. I thought it would be fun to watch people's faces as they walked across it, but we decided to make it firmer.

Down the driveway, bricks are almost gone!


Up driveway towards guestroom:

Santiago has done the final fitting and edges:

More on the water tank cover. Osvaldo welded together a frame that fit over the tank that had room for bricks, then screwed on a plywood base.

Bricks meet the edge of existing driveway.

Guest room entrance area:

Back yard- original brickwork we did a few months ago:

View from opposite corner:

View across laundry area and sand & cement mixture has been swept in.

Water tank cover removed for tweaking:

Some cleanup completed.

Guest room entrance with reflection of dork photographer:

another angle minus dork

Straight on

and finally the water tank cover is in place and we have a patio. Whoopee!!

9 comments:

  1. The new bricks look a bit gray in the last few shots. That's because the sand/cement mixture that grouts the whole thing together has just been swept in and there's still a thin layer of it on top. A few sweepings and the normal wind and weather will brighten things right up.

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  2. |Looks great. Big accomplishment and much cleaner I imagine. Have a great day. Mum & Larry

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  3. I love eet! Wasn't there supposed to be a lemon tree by the casita?

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  6. Our poor bougainvillea didn't like the move, although we were extremely gentle. It remains to be seen if the flowering beauty will recover.

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  7. Gracias, Re: Lemon tree, it was much easier to lay the bricks flat and cut a planting bed later. There are 3 bags of topsoil buried at a strategic spot awaiting said tree.

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  8. Well done!! It looks great!

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