This week has been pretty hectic over at our house. We hired a contractor to start developing our long forgotten backyard which has, since we moved in to our house, been overgrown with weeds. There must be something special in the soil out here in Corona (wink wink, for those who know what used to be out here) because some of the weeds are taller than me! The contractors have been coming back and forth all week preparing for the actual pouring of the concrete. They’ve dug up the ground, installed drainage pipes, forms (the borders of what will become our patio), and added dirt to low areas of the backyard.

With all that work complete, today the cement trucks rolled onto our quiet street and started to pump their gelatinous goop to the backyard through a huge hose. It filled up very quickly! No sooner than the cement finished being poured onto the ground the workers were already spreading and evening it all out. Before long, the surface was all smoothed out, with the “crazy cuts” - intentionally carved weak spots to keep the inevitable cracks that form isolated - all drawn out.

Then…two workers started to stain and stamp the concrete (which by now was actually hard enough to stand on) while the others poured and smoothed out the other parts of the patio. They used this rubber stamp pad with a texture design on one side, and a pole with a flat weight on the end of it (think coat stand w/ the base attached to it) and stamped out the texture to mimic the look and feel of slate stone.

There still has to be a few more steps (powerwashing and sealing) but the patio is basically done!  Then, it’s on to sprinklers, grass, and plants and BBQ’s at my place!

Before:

After: