when we moved to hillcrest I had a few projects on the docket that would take priority because of how foundational they were to the way we live; the flooring, the closets and the kitchen setup. I was really committed to staying focused on these few projects to not have 16 different things going at once...and then I a got a text and my natural 'do all the things at once' type of excitement kicked in.
our friend Dustin texted one day asking if we wanted paver bricks for anything. duh. he already knew. I had no idea what I would use the bricks for but I quickly came up with an idea and that was about all it took. I was off to the races on an unplanned project.
the following weekend Bob and I were hooking up a borrowed trailer and driving an hour to Lansing, MI to pick up the paver bricks. per usual, I greatly underestimated the labor involved...if I could accurately estimate time and effort required for most of my ideas I don't think I'd do 75% of them...so, good thing I'm bad at estimating that stuff.
when we arrived in Lansing all of the bricks were glued to each other with construction adhesive. Bob used a chisel and hammer to break each one apart and I loaded them onto the trailer. we took about 1/3 of what was available because we were spent. we definitely got our workout in for the day, stopped at our favorite pizza place on the way home and then left the trailer in the driveway. exhausted.
the next day I unloaded the trailer and starting setting the bricks in the general layout I'd be using them for. our house had a front and side flower bed but the borders weren't as defined as I like so that's what I decided to do with the bricks.
FLOWER BEDS BEFORE ANY BRICKS
the side flower bed was pretty straight forward with the layout, a rectangle, but the front took me a bit more work because it was a semi circle. it's a little harder to get an even semi circle with all the moving pieces of the pavers. also I was constrained a bit by the slate path I had recently uncovered paired with the limited number of bricks we had brought home.
LAYOUT OF BRICKS BEFORE BEING LEVELED
I ended up shrinking the front flower bed just a bit from the original one to get a more uniform shape in the front of the house. this also allowed me to start and end the brick border at spots that touched the house which felt more polished and complete to me.
feeling good about the layout of the two flower beds I buckled up for a slow and tedious unplanned project. next steps would include leveling the bricks, finding aesthetically pleasing caps for the side flower bed and glueing the caps for a finished project. and then I'd be able to do one of most favorite things...landscape-flower design!
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