Patio Prep: Course Stone

   Work continues to progress well with the installation and tamping of the coarse stone that will serve as a base to the patio pavers.  The crew was under a slight restriction today because the road coming to our house was going to be blocked for a few hours in the middle of the day.  A neighbor was getting his new pontoon boat lifted into the lake via crane since the lake association that controls the boat launch wouldn't allow him access.  Silly petty neighborhood politics.  Regardless of the limitations, Eli and his crew worked like crazy to get the rock and coarse sand dumped at the street, then shuttled to the back yard.

    The coarse stone provides a rough idea of where the pavers will be laid.  It overlaps the footprint of the actual pavers and will be covered by a fine compacted sand.  All this stone was dumped, spread, leveled, and compacted using a small plate compactor.

   The implementation of the swim-out steps changed a little from the initial design but the idea is the same.  A 3-4 foot wide paver path will circle around the deep end of the pool and meet up with the steps.  This new design removes a little of the planting bed on the back side of the pool, but not by much.

   Here's a shot of the paver base from the lounging side.  It's designed to be about 10 feet deep from the pool edge, which should give enough room for lounge chairs and walking space.  The back side of this area will have a planting bed as well.  The edge of the coarse stone is a little undefined, but the excavation machines still needed some access to the area from this point. 

   They started to clean out a path to the base of the boulder wall so they can construct it from below.  I'm hoping there won't be any long term negative effects on the oak trees they're winding through, as they can be a little sensitive to soil compaction.  I'll have to keep my eyes on them and give them extra fertilization if they start to look weak.  They survived the initial construction process and it would be a shame to lose them now.

   Boulders will hopefully be here Monday or Tuesday next week and they can start to construct the retaining wall.  Plumbing and utilities will need to be trenched before the wall is completed since the runs will go under the wall.  I'll need to put in some work and clear out the wood pile and raspberry bushes near the house penetrations for the utilities.  We're getting a last burst of summer with temperatures expected to be in the high 80's, so hopefully we'll get some warm weather in the fall to swim a bit.