Here's what it looks like this morning as I get ready to work.
(Please, kindly overlook the peeling paint, the half-scraped front door, all that. I'll get to it, I promise.)
I call the part under the roof the *porch,* and the open area with the decorative spirals is the *patio.* The spirals are there for fun. I had a plain-jane patio there earlier on, and got tired of it. I wanted to make something fancier. So I combined a lot of different brick patterns, and blended them in with the little walkways along the driveway and all over the front yard.
Since I was building a ramp into the patio, of course, I had to raise it everywhere it joined with walkways. Both of the spirals had to get raised too.The last two pix show the spirals close up.
7 comments:
Ok lady, those little wedges tell the truth--you did *not* just plop down standard bricks to make your paths. There was some fussing and fitting and careful cutting involved to make those spirals. Not to mention the painstaking process of sanding the joints while keeping those thin little slivers standing upright and properly spaced.
I think you're more patient than I.
That is amazing! Lookin' good! So is the white stuff in between the bricks white sand? You did this all by yourself? Wow!
Well, the spirals are not what I'd call basic bricklaying. But it's still not as difficult as it looks. There's a little trick to working with that sand. It's really easy if it's just...wet. See? It packs.
And the wedges stand up between the large pieces quite well as you're working with them.
Thanks Cindi! Yup, sand is all that is. Down here we're blessed with something called *sugar sand.* I know it goes up toward Plant City in great abundance, north of there too. How far, and where it ends, I'm not sure. You have a lot more clay closer to the Panhandle so I'm not clear on whether you've seen as much of the sugar sand areas. I seem to remember seeing a lot of it in Panhandle beaches though.
It sure is beautiful. It just glows and sparkles in the sunshine. It's extremely fine grained so it's not considered a good grade for most construction uses. But if you want the purest white mortar? The sand component in that is often Florida sugar sand.
Ah, I hadn't thought of that. I always have done my sanding with sand concrete mix, which has to be poured in dry, of course.
Oh! Yeah, a bit different there!
This is all just loose sand. I like the option of moving them later if I want.
Surprising how stable you can make them, even without mortared joints or beds. I mean, I'm ALL sand, bed too. Washed sand on top of the soil, no gravel or limerock, except for the driveway.
It cracked me up a while back when you explained that it'd be different out there if you had sand lying around. Of course, most people think that's what deserts are made of - and, would never guess that interior Florida IS made of sand!
After my "ex" moved back to this area from Gulf Shores AL, he brought me a little milk carton of some of that fine white sand. It was so different than the container of California beach sand I have. That sand was browner and grainier. I was amazed at the finer white sand. With the white sand I want to make a miniature Zen Garden but haven't gotten around to it yet.
Oh, you've seen it! I'm so glad. Silly, okay. But it's really special stuff, that sugar sand.
If you wash it, it gets even whiter. Just put it in a container, add water, swish it around, pour out the water, and repeat until the water comes out clean. It removes little bits of loam and other impurities.
If you run out of it when you make your Zen garden, let me know and I'll send you some more.
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