Project Checklist

Blog!?! Who has time to blog! There's too much to do!

Rick and I have been frantically working on the backyard and deck, getting ready for the big event. The deck is getting old enough that it needed some major repairs, such as a new step and rail top. I wouldn't want anyone to get injured at the wedding. And then I want the grass as pretty as I can make it. And a new gazebo for the deck. And lots of potted flowers. And patch the bare spots in the yard. And... and... and...

One project I've been pondering as to how to do is a concrete patch underneath where I hang my bird feeder. The bird droppings and sunflower seed shells kill the grass, apparently attract wormies, then the moles are attracted to the worms. So wherever I hang it I have no grass and have pushed up dirt and rocks instead. But I don't want to eliminate the bird feeder, and I can't hang it over a garden, the seed will just grow. That leaves only one possibility - concrete.

I looked into bricks that form a circle. Cool but a little pricey. You can only buy a full circle which is 6' in diameter and I only want a 4' circle. And a 6' circle costs $300. Yikes! But I have a son in the concrete business so I decided to take advantage of him and his know-how.

So I chose a plan of action and got started on it a month or so ago. There has been a lot of oddball things I wanted that are hard to accomplish. One being color. No, it's not hard to find concrete stain. But I have only a 4' circle and they only sell the stain in full gallons. Oh well. I got the color I wanted and it cost about $25.

Next problem - some kind of decoration. I searched online for some circle designs and found a very suitable one for the placement and purpose of the circle - birds and flowers.

How to apply the design? Grind it in! Stain it, sketch it, then grind it and the design is then concrete color while the rest of the surface is stained. How to grind it? I have a dremel, can you grind concrete with a dremel? Sure you can! - with a diamond tip, that is. Those are also hard to find. I did finally find one and about a third of the way through the project it broke. So I called the store and they didn't have any more. But another location had it and all the others as well. So I purchased a better one, a ball shape one and the job went much quicker and easier.



Here is the end result right after I washed off the painted sketch, it's mostly dry with a few wet spots. Those are snowdrop flowers, not bees:

Don't forget to click on it to see it better, in a larger size.

Another project I can check off my list - On with the dress!