Thoughts About Rocks

 My readers may or may not remember that a year ago we had our flagstone sidewalk re-done.  It had seen it's better days, had become a tripping hazard, and well, to be honest.... it looked REALLY bad.

Now, my husband had tried to fix it himself, and as handy a guy as my man is, a stone layer he is not.

 Unless of course it only requires stacking concret stone/pavers such as these, and then he's my dream layer. He can do this work in a heartbeat and do it well.

 

 When having any stonework done I recommend getting two or three quotes, since we found them to vary wildly in cost. The quotes we received varied by thousands of dollars.

Of course you want good work, so do your homework so you know there are no complaints by their previous customers.

Better safe than sorry.

AND, be sure to get someone who's work you have seen photos of, or they will provide you with addresses where they have done work so that you can do a drive by and see for yourself.

 This is one of the two rock walls our stone contractor did on our property and he is scheduled to come do another for us, as well as columns at the entrance to our driveway.

 This is a photo of the sidewalk when it was being done.  As you can see, it's not just a matter of laying stone on the ground.

It is dug out and a fine grain of rock laid down, then the flagstone is put in piece by piece as the stone layer using a chisel/hammer to break some pieces into the shape needed to fill in the smaller spaces.

It's artwork!

 Once the flagstone is all laid into place and leveled properly, an epoxy type substance is used to fill in between the stones to make it all one complete surface.  

The previous owners had used sand only, and let moss grow between the flagstones and WHAT A MESS!  I don't recommend that method.  The weeds that came up between the flagstones were unmanageable and required constant hands and knees weeding.  What a nightmare.  I finally gave up trying and we made the decision to have it all re-done correctly.

 Here is an estimator/calculator  by zipcode to give you a ball park figure of what it might cost to have flagstone work done on your property.

It's a nice addition to the area around your home.

Happy Father's Day To All The Good Fathers Of This World.

XOX

A Heavy Sigh

 Life got you down?

I can happily say that that is a rarity in my life.

Life is not perfect, but most days it really is as though I am living with a rainbow over my head.

Lucky you say?

Not really, although choosing the right husband the second time around accounts for much of my good fortune, and I don't feel guilty about being happy considering that I was single for nearly twenty years between husbands.

Those single years were lean years, times of struggle without many rainbows.

You will think this sounds vain of me, but I see myself as smart... wily smart, not so much straight A achievement kind of smart, but a good choice maker in life kind of smart.  My husband says he thinks that I struggle with decision making, but that's only because I mostly allow him to lead the way, and it's not a man-woman kind of thing... me woman, you man, so YOU make the decision, it's really a case of my knowing that he makes VERY good decisions, and most of the time I agree with him, so I just sit back and let him go for it.

 So, last year he had all of this stonework done around the yard.... this wall was added around a planted bed area,

We talked about this together and were in agreement as to what work we wanted to have done.

 and he had the stone layer re-do our flagstone walkway so that it was now all level and no longer a tripping hazard, 

 and a nice wide, deep step was built up to the front porch so we no longer had to jump from the porch down onto the sidewalk.

 and at the back of the house a small patio was laid in flagstone to alight onto when coming down from the steps of the deck.
*this part of the plan was TOTALLY MY IDEA*

Now, back to the decision making; my husband is having the stone layer come in a couple of weeks to fix a few bricks that the basement walkout door sits atop, and also add more stone walls along the driveway as well as two stone columns at the entrance to our drive.  I'm not overly in favor of this idea, but the decision has been made by him.

There are instances when he just wants what he wants, and my opinion won't sway him,

It's not that I have bad decision making skills... it's simply that sometimes it's not worth an argument.

I mean is it really worth yanking on that rainbow?

*heavy sigh*