Cement and Concrete Projects

A couple weeks ago I did a post about This That and The Other Thing, which basically was a stall because I didn't have time to write a new post while we were working on outside projects.

Well guess what?  This is another stall, but with some photos of project progress.

Summer season doesn't really get started in Minnesota till June anyhow, and now that the wet leaves are cleaned up and winter washed away from everything, we can have at projects that seem to move from the to-do list year after year.

Our front porch steps have been progressing, but they can only be worked on between days of rain.  You know how that goes - when we have time the rain arrives and on sunny days we have places to go and people to see.  

The steps had sunk over the past 20 years and the once polished exposed aggregate walkway is dingy and no longer glistens, but the long crack that it sprouted is now gone.

The cement of the new steps is done and with the addition of another step, anyone shorter than the 6'2" of my husband won't have to hurt themselves to make the stride up them.  Much more user friendly if you ask my short self.

As the cement cures the next step will be to stain, seal and polish them.  Hopefully this experiment will result in bye-bye dingy walkway and a nice reveal very shortly.

In fact, hopefully there will be several outside reveals shortly!

The photo above is a good representation of the view in both the back yard and the front yard the past few weeks.

Empty concrete bags, wheelbarrows, and project paraphernalia move from location to location.

We have gone through countless bags of Quikrete this season. 

Rocks in the pond were cemented in so they don't fall off the edge when dogs take a swim.  The upper pond was done already, but for whatever reason the lower one wasn't a top priority.

Some of the projects are smaller, like this little cement landing pad, still wet in the above photo.

A few summers ago we added some hand formed stone look walkways and the pad at the end of the bridge will match those.

If you look closely at the walkway you can see a small landscape stone sitting on each colored shape like a color changing chameleon.  Brawn stained them in the colors of the rocks before they were sealed.

And last but not least, laying on our garage floor, is this........

Don't know what that is?

Does this one help.......

It looks like some sort of a form or mold with bolts sticking out.  Hmmmm.....

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