Friday Night Is Alright For a Patio

As of late, I've returned to my internal-clock roots and capitalized on Friday night. That has *always* been my best time as it totally sets the weekend up for nothing but productivity and good. High School. College. After when I've been able to swing it. Friday night never fails me.

With that reminder-revelation in mind, I jumped on Friday night to dive into the next project: The patio!

After watching a handful of YouTube videos on using egg cartons for the main material, I went for it! Here's how it played out!

First, I put down piece of cardboard that would be my base. I wanted a thin one so there wasn't an edge, so I just used a cereal box. Then, I cut around the patio space from the template I made for putting down the grass and used it to mark the area on the cardboard:

The next step was to cover the area on the cardboard with masking tape to keep all of the glue that's about to be used from soaking into the cardboard and completely warping it. This was a trouble-shoot issue later that you will see. But, I did do that step. And, then, I got to tearing up an egg carton:

I wasn't precise in my tearing by any means, but I was mindful of how big the pieces were so they didn't look massive for my people. I also re-marked the corners of the patio space on the tape so I knew where to stop working.

The next step was to soak a paper towel in glue and place it on the base.

When laid out with glue-soaked egg carton pieces, this potentially serves as the mortar between stones. The person in the YouTube tutorial noted using a name-brand, Scott paper towel which worked way better for her than my off-brand paper napkin. But, whatever, I improvised as mine would not unfold but, rather, would tear. 😬

There are no in-progress pictures of the stones being put into to place because it was messy, and I needed to keep moving. And, both of my hands were c.o.v.e.r.e.d in glue the entire time! (Back-to-school prices on glue came just at the right time!) The basic idea is that I dipped each piece, one by one, in the glue, and I put it in the patio space. I used enough glue to cover them well but not so much that they would take days to dry. Some of them overlapped while others had some space in between them. I did not aim for perfect fits, or this project would have made me cry. Rather, I got pieces close and just kind of eyeballed what looked right. I kept in mind that the tutorial mentioned the pieces would shrink as they dried, so I accounted for that when I thought about it. Sometimes, it was too late to remember, so I just moved on!

After about an hour, I had the space covered!

Let me break this picture down a bit! First, you can see that the cardboard base is taped down almost all the way around its perimeter. I did that so it wouldn't warp as much if it got wet. Then, you see the paper napkin around the edges of the stone that is wrinkled and torn. That's how it also looks under the stones, and it worked out just fine. Like, if you do this, don't freak if your towel -- which is a good cover for the base if nothing else -- looks like a mess. It just needs to be flat enough.

The real story here is about the push pins. Even with my efforts to keep things flat, the masking tape did not prevent the warping problem. So, once the entire patio was laid out, I just started adjusting things. First, I untapped the perimeter first to see if anything changed when it was allowed to work itself out. On the left edge, which was turning upward, untaping the perimeter let it relax and fall flat (who knew ?!). Once it was in the place it was comfy, I taped that into place. From there, I literally pushed down gently around the patio space to see if there was air underneath. If it didn't move, I moved on. If it pushed down, that's where I knew to stick a push pin to keep it down.

A few weeks ago, the hubs built me a new work space from the
remainder of the plywood used for the house platform/yard. This,
when I had to just stick - hammer - pins in where I was working,
is when the move to have a plywood work space becomes genius.

I probably spent the next hour with a toothpick massaging corners and edges of the stones down if they were curling up as paper will do. The edges were often wet enough that they made a little bit of a paper mache situation making it easier to cover or fill edge holes. I got down almost level to the stones and looked from different angles to see where attention was needed! I called it good when I could hear my Dad in my head saying, "This could go on all day." As in, it may never, ever end. So, I ended it. 😊

I was very pleased to wake up to a reasonably still-flat patio today! It seems banging the push pins solution worked! Once I pulled them out, it looked like this:

If you look close in the lower-left quadrant of the picture, you can see a little brown dot. Some of the push pins reacted with the glue and left these marks. I have no actual explanation. Just pointing it out.

So! It looked great! But, I certainly was not finished! First, the mortar!

Basically, I used a very, small bit on the tip of my finger to smear it in between the stones. The target of the mortar was certainly between the stones, but that would have been impossible to do cleanly. So, I did the best I could without worrying about it. I used a baby wipe on stones that got too much on top of them as I went, and, then, I went back with a wipe after the whole thing was finished to take more off in places I deemed necessary. No rhyme or reason, just whatever I felt it should look like.

After that dried, I got out the chalk pastels (after a hunt to find them exactly where they belong) for some highlighting and dimension. For the most of the job, I scraped just a little dusting off close to where I wanted it with an X-acto blade ...

And, then, I just rubbed it in with my finger:

The above example is absolutely the worst one I did. Perfect choice to show, huh? 😂 Anyway, I used a combination of light and medium grays as well as, sparingly, black and white where I really felt those were needed. I also rubbed my finger in a mustard color and highlighted a few of the stones. Finally, just a few got a slight touch of green.

Then, it was Poly time!

Okay, here's where it all got real, though. The one thing I realized very early in the project - but, way to late for turning back - was that I knew I'd have to cut away the extra cardboard/tape/gluey napkin to get the edge I wanted and needed. But, I wasn't sure exactly what to use to make that happen without cracking anything.

Fortunately, the moment of truth was much easier to face than I feared. In fact, it was a non-issue as the X-acto knife cut right through with no problems:

I cut away the bigger parts before getting detailed around the stones. And, once all cleaned up, I had something quite fabulous!

Here it is all dressed up!

I really liked seeing it from this angle when I walked by! And,
then, in this picture, I spy with my little eye a place just
screaming for the exterior trim project to get going! *sigh*

Here's the full view:

Yeah, Polly and Hal are still over there yammering about that
pot. What they should be doing is taking down the holiday decs ...

I kept playing around with it, so here's just one more view:

There was still a slight curl upward in the piece, when I put it down on the yard, but, this is pliable enough that I could "work it" the opposite way to gently redirect the curl. I got it all but the very, very front which I don't even notice until I stare at it. I'll likely work with it in the morning, but, right now, I just love looking at it.

And, on a smaller note since it's in the picture, I must share a little make-over I did the other night. Remember the pink flowers I'd settled on keeping? Um, yeah. That didn't last because I did this to them:

The left is before, and the middle is after! HAPPY!!
And, the purple is another pink make-over. I will have pink
in the gardens, but these pinks weren't doing it for me.
THE COLOR MAKE-OVERS ARE, THOUGH!

One of these bouquets is currently in the gazebo while the other
you can see on the patio 😁.

There's more outdoor goodness to come! (No, not the trim. That would just make sense ...)