A boat feels like a big place to live when your front yard is
miles of ocean and your back yard is miles of shoreline.
Likewise a small house fells big when you have a patio that is
larger than the house and as private as the house.
Feb 4 - And the temperature
finally got above freezing, so
the mixer queen and I started
on the patio wall.
Mar 5 - Randi came for a visit
and was quickly converted into
the an armature mason's
apprentice.
Mar 8 - The concrete block
work on the patio wall is
completed.
Mar 25 - Foundations for
Bath & Fireplace.
The Mixer Queen enjoys a
Spring day.
Somebody needs to go on a
diet. I am not enlarging the
dog door.
Kay and Sam try out the mud
seats in the tub.
Apr 8 - Kay mixed 15 loads
of concrete and I spend 12
hours in the hot tub today.
Apr 23 - Tub and fireplace
base concrete work is done.
Apr 23 - A housing for a batch
solar water heater and the
patio gates have been installed.
Apr 29 - Stucco is done!
Paint goes on and 21 tons of
pavers go down.
Hmmm... That might make a
nice tattoo.
Kay post the guard dog
outside the gate.
Steel cables support shade
material.
And we added some LED
lighting for ambience.
Kay shows the our new coffee table and her first
start to finish welding project.
The neighbor kids splash in the
tub.
This is our 3rd concrete hot tub.
The first one was a septic tank we had poured only 4
feet deep and then we tiled it. The second was dug
into the side of a hill and concreted. This one
started with concrete block walls, then plumbing was
added as needed, then seats and walls are shaped
with dirt and mud. When that dries, a couple of
layers of 6x6 reinforcing wire are added, and then
the wife runs the concrete mixer while I slowly work
the concrete higher and higher up the walls. (photos
above) Fill it with water and let it curer for a
week, then use an angle grinder with a diamond disk
to smooth out the bumps. For the tub we build into
the hill side we added die to the concrete to get it
to match the natural rock. This one we painted
with epoxy swimming pool paint; red! $40 plumbing +
$70 concrete + $60 for the grinding disk + $70
paint. Total $240. Sitting naked with your girl in
a warm tub, priceless. No naked photos; We'll
spare you that :)
