Building A Patio

We thought it would be a nice addition to our beach house to have a patio in our back yard to have our bbq grill and a nice area to have dinner outside in the evenings. With our budget getting tighter and tighter, we decided to take on the task of building a patio at our beach house ourselves. We had built a similar thing but on a much smaller scale but not on sandy soil. So our researching began. We visted Lowes and Home Depot on numerous occassions to see what type blocks and pavers we wanted to use, we looked at magazines, Youtube videos, googled info and after much research finally came to our decision of what we wanted and how we wanted it to look. We decided to build a retaining wall using Oldcastle Fulton 11-1/2-in x 4-in Tan Basic Retaining Wall Block and the Oldcastle Cassay 15-3/4-in x 15-3/4-in Tan Charcoal Four-Cobble Paver. We built our wall first and to break up the hardscape of the wall and pavers we added a flower garden between the wall and the actual patio. Next up is getting the base for the patio all ready. We had to shovel out a lot of sand in order to get a solid base at the right height we needed. We got our base level and then added our gravel, tamped it down and then added sand back in. After this process you have to "screen" it to make sure everything is level. Lowes has a new product out that you put down right before the pavers. It's called Brock 36"L x 24"W Interlocking Paver Base Panel. It worked like a charm. It made the job so much easier. Once we got to putting the pavers down, the job went pretty quickly. After getting all the pavers in place we brushed more sand between all the joints, misted it down with water and then stood back and admired our beautiful patio. We felt pretty proud that we did it all by ourselves.

The One's We Threw Back

This past week we took a vacation to Martha's Vineyard to visit family. We both love to fish so we went fishing almost every day. Our last day of fishing the fish were happily bouncing out of the water everywhere. We had a great day of fishing as you can see by our catch. Together we probably caught 20 of these babies but threw them all back but two.

Beach House is finished

It's been two months since I posted last and our beach house is finally finished. We can start moving all our furniture in soon. It's been exciting and fun to build this house. We had a great builder. Brian Keesee with Keesee Construction. http://www.bkeesee.com Brian has been great to work with through the entire process.

Oops...wrong color

Our builder sent us pictures of our hardwoods. See the picture with the white column? The section to the right is supposed to be painted the same color as the wall to the left. It was primed the correct color when we were last down there. Not sure why they painted it a totally different color. Oh well, at least it's an easy fix.

The hardwoods look great. We love them. They are working on the kitchen cabinets this week. Hopefully they will be going in soon.

Beachy Paint Colors

The painting is all done, doors hung, tile finished and now we're on to the hardwoods. When we were down a couple weeks ago this is how the inside of the house looked. We are loving these colors and can't wait to get all the furniture in and decor completed.

A 3rd deck and a beautiful sunset

We have a 3rd deck now. The spiral staircase needed to reach the 3rd deck has not arrived yet so we climbed a ladder to check out the view. Boy was it a view! It was clear Saturday and you could see from one end of the island to the other. After stopping by to check out the progress on the house we took the pups for a walk/run on the beach and then caught a beautiful sunset.

It's beginning to look like a house...

A lot has been happening with our beach house in the last couple weeks. It's beginning to look like a house now. As I write this we should have siding and shutters and the electricians and plumbers should be arriving to do their thing.