Monthly Progress Update

There are hundreds of pictures to choose from, and I did want to show the major work and so I FILLED this post with picture after picture for my own documentation. Sorry - you don't have to go all the way through it, you can stop now if this bores you.

 This last month was huge in the advancement of our back yard project.

 The concrete guys were on top of their game as they poured the rough in for the main patio.

 This one pour involved 4 sets of stairs,

 the lower patio just outside of the main part of the house,

 (this is the very definition of playing in the mud)

and the upper patio outside of the cabana house and in front of the shallow end of our pool.

 A few days later was the install of the steel roof for the main arbor on the upper patio.

 In came the crane,

 and it lifted the beams up one by one.

 All the way over the house to the back yard.

 Placed on top of the four posts that had already been bolted, welded, and cemented in place.

 We even invited the blimp for our big day.

 The "bends" were placed on one by one,

 All the while the pool guys were shoring up the top of the pool for a nice even edge for the coping as well as the tiles.

Nice stairs and landing at the top for entrance into the cabana.

 Our pool man and The Hubby talking about all the details of the skimmers and bobbers.

 You can see the welder in the background.

 All done with the steel install.

 Meanwhile, the masons are starting to border the patio with the "Frontier Tan" rock. There is the drain out 12 inches from the edge of the wall.

 The "Amoras" rock is the wall rock and it is more colorful and randomly shaped.

While the Frontier Tan is a rectangular and square pattern. 

If you notice the pile of soil to the right of this next picture, it shows that the 2 huge trees roots are still not covered up. I started bugging the contractor and finally got the workers to put the back of wall drainage in so that we could get those roots covered back up. I want my trees to remain healthy. They seem fine and all leafed out, but I was just a little worried about stressing them out too much.

 Beautiful!!!! Taking shape, eh?

 I told you there were a lot of pictures.

 Planter outside of garage.

 Vents for the crawl space airflow.

 The mason cut the rock down 1/8 inch all the way around to accommodate each of the 7 vents that go against the house. Very precise and good job.

 Now the concrete guys are setting the coping trim all the way around the pool. We had chosen a brownish concrete, but after the mock up was done, we changed to a little more olive toned concrete. It matches the stone better and we are probably going to have it sandblasted after it is poured.

 This is where the basketball standard is going to go. The pipes just slip into these sleeves that are set down into the concrete.

And finally the last fire feature to pour a footing for. 

This next month is going to see all the concrete finished, the mason work will also make most of its progress, the pool should get nearly finished and the ceiling/ wood posts done. Hopefully the dirtscapes will also begin taking shape with the irrigation, potting soil, etc.