Corner of Bourbon & Division

Not necessarily in that order. Come to think of it, when all the craziness has died down I may well do a Sergio Leone rewatch. It's been a while since I enjoyed a good Spaghetti Western. :)


( Nattering about the week that just went by and the week to come )

I decided to start researching paving slabs to see if I could find some that are a decent price (I had a flash of inspiration that told me that I could go to Home Depot or the like tomorrow before leaving for Montreal, thus sparing me an extra trip this weekend). The problem I think I might be encountering is not so much that I can't afford the slabs, but that the job of laying them out might be a case of my biting off more than I can chew.

Let me provide some context. The area I want to lay over with paving slabs is right at the base of the stairs leading down from the back balcony. It's about 60 square feet worth of space, 2 feet by 30 feet. Between the hard winter and the dog using it as his bathroom all winter, it's now all hard-packed dirt that turns into an oozing, churning morass of mud whenever it rains. Also, in spite of my attempts to clean out all the dog poop, well, some of it inevitably got ground in there as well.

The idea was therefore to create a clean space there using paving slabs. I thought I could simply lay them down, and, even if they weren't perfectly lined up, it would still be better than wading through mud and residual faecal matter. The more I research, though, the bigger this project seems to be. It doesn't look like I can simply put down the slabs and hope for the best. All the websites I've looked at insist that I have to excavate the area where I want to put them, then fill it in first with gravel (or loose stones, or what have you), pack that down using a tamper, and then fill in another layer with sand, tamp that down. After that I'd have to put in edging, held in place with nails, and only then would I be able to put down my paving slabs.

So not only is this project turning out to be a lot more expensive than simply getting some paving slabs to put down (gravel and sand and edging and nails, not to mention renting a tamper), but it's not something I can do in less than a day at best. And that's supposing I even know what I'm doing, which I absolutely do not.

Out of curiosity, is there anyone out there on my flist who has done something like this before? Any advice? Dire warnings for ignorant amateurs like me to not do this sort of thing unsupervised, ever?

Halp.

At this point, even if I do get the materials this weekend, I may have to resign myself to not getting the paving slabs put down. If I get the yard clean, though, Bean might at least be able to play if he simply avoids that one area (hah). Of course, there's still the issue of there being no fence, but at this juncture I can't actually help that until people come by to give us an estimate. I'll see if I can get one from some other service providers, too. I have a Home Depot card, which is why I'm trying to stick with them as much as I can, since it gives me some breathing room rather than having to cough up all that money at once.

Right. Back to work.

Having been told that it would cost me a minimum of $700 to replace the little section of floor in my dining room (that the cats ruined: thank you, Feline Forces of Entropy), I am seriously considering doing it myself, given that the cost of materials would be about 1/3 that price.

Has anyone on my flist replaced hardwood flooring before? It's the stuff made out of little squares... *rummages online to find a picture*

Okay, this:




I figure it can't possibly be that hard to do, given time, application, and the right tools. So I appeal to you, dear flist: what the hell kind of tools would I need for this? I'd need to pull up the existing floor, and then put down the new one. I know I need the wood itself (it comes in convenient packages) as well as the glue-stuff to stick it in place, but what else? Is there a specific tool to pull up the floor, or can I use the back end of a hammer?

Eventually I will know how to do all this myself, but right now I'm still at the bottom of the learning curve.