Drive On Up.....

*Colleen Moore 

It has been a busy past week. At times stressful, what with a refrigerator going out when it was only two weeks old and dealing with trying to get that resolved ( finally tomorrow a brand new one shall be delivered). Hubby and our youngest crawling around for a whole week in the attic each night, getting banged up and bruised trying to put insulation in and I had workmen in our yard for several days strait... in between time, delivery men of one kind or another, meeting the neighbor from next door, she was a real character to say the least, and going off for a lunch date to meet one of my blog readers, who has in recent months become a dear on line friend, confidant, and cheerleader.  BUT, back to the workmen.  This past week we got a new driveway, and two walk ways put in!! No more parking in the mud!!! 

A reminder of how it looked when we bought the home. 

As I told you in a previous post, we had contractors here for a few days strait giving us bids after having signed up with them at a local home show. After only a few, I/we decided on a local family owned company Discover Landscape. There was many reasons. Upon meeting Gabriel Gonzalez jr. at the home show and his friend and co-worker ( who's name escapes me) , they were very polite, and friendly, and they had been on Turf Wars on the DIY channel, so impressive too seeing as they only have 7 years experience according to the video (see link above). Oh! and on a side note Gabriel and his friend were both cute *giggle* . When Gabriel came out to give us a quote, again I felt very comfortable, not at all pushed or "sold to" , and his quote was under everyone elses and so without any further need to see others, we canceled all appointments and called to hire him and his firm. My husband had no sooner called him to tell him, and Gabriel had already figured a way to give us a better price to fit our budget and still do a job well done. The real impressive part was moments after my husband got off the phone with Gabriel, he called me and wanted to come over, get the deposit check and begin taking measurements, he was to get started the very next day! Talk about exciting! Well at least to me. I am nerdy that way. So as promised the next day work did begin... and so let me start the photographic story of our new drive....

The day before.. parking in mud and sludge. 

Day one. The original outlining... hubby later came over
and changed it up some... making my garden planting area
bigger... *sigh* .... as if we did not have enough to
landscape!

The digging and leveling begin....

This was a pretty long process, and we now have a pile of 

mud, tree roots and old sprinkler systems in the back yard....

more work for us, but was cheaper than having them haul it away. 

The boss man....

And Dad, Gabriel Sr. , tamping down of the stone layer. 

LOOKIE! We nearly have a walk way... I am
sure you can see why I do not like parking
in the original drive way! 

The next afternoon the workers came and smoothed out the rock,
someone had used it to pull into and back back out, guessing to
turn around, so this was important to smooth out. 

The wire mesh...instead of rebarb posts, this saved us nearly 900.00! 

Bright and early on the third day, the concrete truck and
the workers arrived.....

Preparations take some time, but before long .....

 

the concrete begins to flow. First the walk way on the
sides of the house. We needed to have these as the
property is not graded properly and moisture was seeping into the
foundation. The walks will protect the base of the house and give us a nice way to navigate
around the perimeter. 

It takes an army of men to do even the smallest of
areas to get it done right and before the concrete begins to
set up. 

Smoothing it out and creating the sloped grade to help with
drainage of water. 

 

Walk #2 between us and the next door neighbor.
This side now has kitty cat paw prints in it for all time! 

Next comes the big one... a four car drive in the front !
We want room for when our daughters come to visit to park. 

We had all sorts of people stare as they either
drive by or walked by. This neighbor walked over here
specifically to watch, with a "what the heck" look on his face.
He stood there for a good long time, and then turned around and
walked back from where he came. 

The smoothing of the drive begins. There was not enough concrete in the
first truck, so while waiting on another delivery, they smoothed the already
poured portions....

....and as a nice thing to do for us, because we could
not afford a new front walk, they prepped and
created a "ramp" of concrete on a break in the concrete
that I seemed to always trip on. 

 

Edging the concrete, making it ready for the forms to come off....and
creating expansion lines in the concrete.

Ah! Finally, load #2 arrives an hour or so after the other left...
at least the workmen had time to eat breakfast, work on
smoothing things out, create edges and then even eat lunch before needing to
get back to it.  They had been there since 8 a.m.and it was hard work!

As the afternoon progressed a loan workman stayed behind to do the final smoothing
and add the final large expansion lines. 

Wala.. by 3:45 p.m. we had a drive, and two walk ways, and I had written the
final check and we bid the workers good job and good day! 

So you remember the before.....

The final comparison look ....taken just three days after being poured, at the same time of day work began (sorry for quality of photo...sun was very bright) , and just before we pulled our cars up onto our new drive.

Now , all we need is to paint the shutters and door, add porch rails, new porch
lights, our new mail box, and some other decorative porch details, then the
tall side fence, picket fencing to the front, landscaping and ....... 

Till the next installment.....