So the fake hubby wanted to build this in a day…  (insert your reaction)…. I know right!

Like everyone we are taking this years and ‘the lack of being able see people’ combined with ‘the safer outside when you see people’ due to COVID to try to get like the next 3 years worth of planned projects and wish list items done in like 2 months.  One of those projects was a brick path around the house because, I wanted one.   If I start to make the front yard into a big garden (which is the plan, but still waiting on my ChipDrop), I wanted this garden path to easily get from ‘section’ to ‘section’ of the lawn and gardens and patios.  A lot of houses have a path that connects things and I too wanted one, BUT I wanted one that was old school and looked like it was NOT just put in yesterday.

I love bricks, and the house is bricks, and… brick path it is!   I turned to Pinterest of course and starting looking at other brick paths and garden paths for inspiration.  See my Pinterest board ‘Edible Whole Yard Garden’ for all my inspiration ideas for the yard this summer of 2020, and for just the pictures of my projects, my DIY Projects board on Pinterest has those too.

We started the digging on a Friday and he had the front 20 feet of sod removed in less than an hour. We tossed it into his truck bed and planned to run to the dump in the morning, as we were also sick of the hedges from the last project sitting on the curb since Milwaukee said they would resume brush pick up and other municipalities were … but never gave a date, and we were sick of them sitting there. We only fit maybe ½ of the stack of hedges in the truck tho! So some still remained Saturday morning. OMG took us an hour to get thru the dump! I had to text the brick lady that we’d be 15 minutes late! Thankfully she was very very nice and didn’t mind. The brick lady you say… yup the fantastic amazing brick lady and her hubby allowed us to get bricks earlier in the week and then pick up the remainder this morning, Saturday, also the day of her BABY SHOWER so we wanted to be in and out of there before any of the setup was starting.

Let’s back track…

I have an addiction with Facebook Marketplace lately…  honestly I think I need an intervention.  I found these wonderful large awesome bricks in Racine from some kind dude remodeling a duplex.  Paid $20 for them all (these bricks ended up as the center of our entire pathway for reference later).  I also found a gal and her hubby just north of Racine that gave away like 250 cream city style bricks for FREE.  These bricks had a lot of wear, but since we were heading to Racine and I wanted this path to look very old… we picked up both in one trip.  The truck was riding LOW that day on the way home.  I was sooo excited.  We just kept stacking them up along side the house in the mulch until we could gather enough.  I had guessed we would need 650 bricks as we wanted roughly a 24 inch wide path, or three bricks lengths.  And our path was 20 feet on the front of the house, and roughly 50 feet along the side.  We picked these up one Friday evening in May.

The next week, via Marketplace, I found more bricks listed for Free and the Fake Hubby picked them up mid week from the Brick Lady’s hubby.  Brick lady’s hubby told the Fake Hubby they had more if we wanted them, and my Fake Hubby of course said, YES! That would be Great!!!   Brick lady then messaged me… and we arranged to pick them up Saturday.  I felt a little guilty picking them up the day of her shower, but she wanted them gone.  They had poured a new cement patio sometime tween the Fake Hubby’s first visit and this time… so I felt a little better upon arrival assuming they were cranking out projects in preparation for this party.  I also felt better because I wanted to pay for this bricks when I say how great they were, but they said no thanks, we just want them gone…  I admit, and for any critics, I found a blank card in my stack with a toddler in a sunhat picking a flower… thought it was fitting given the baby shower – and I could not resist writing her a thank you and congrats/baby shower note and yes for everyone, like me, who knows she really could have sold these bricks … I did put a little cash in the card as I was truly grateful to get this next round of bricks as this load… MEANT WE HAD 650+ and we could make our path…

After unloading Saturday, and the Fake Hubby’s lofty goal of finishing today, Saturday, we dug the remaining 50 feet.  Loaded up the truck with the remaining branches, and made an early afternoon run to the dump and stopped to get sand and gravel on the return trip.  Ok, I confess, we had to come home and then go to Home Depot – I had to pee!  That line at the dump was again RIDICULOUSLY long again, and I just didn’t think would make it!  Thankfully Home Depot is only a few miles away.

12 bags of gravel and 16 bags of sand later… we were home and unloaded.  I like to unload the bags ‘evenly’ over the 20 and 50 feet so its kinds where you will use them to make no hauling later.. So every 5 feet or so there was a bag of sand and gravel plunked along the path.  I am not as strong as the Fake Hubby so I like to move them as little as possible or I am exhausted before we even begin!

I started to take out the bricks and lay them out along side the front 20.  This helped give me an idea on our final layout plan, and also allowed them to be laid out for pressure washing.  It is a good thing I did because it never dawned on me that those big beautiful bricks from the Racine dude, where WAY bigger and thus no way to really work them in… so I sat and stared and we took a short break to think, because without them we wouldn’t have enough bricks then to complete the project.  It was the Fake Hubby whom asked about using them in the middle the way we did and just having the path a little narrower than planned… moved them around and YES! We liked it.  The path is a hair over 22 inches vs the 24 inches, but Fake Hubby grabbed some wood ramps to show me how easy it was to bring up a wheel barrow or lawn mower over the front steps and ‘we can just take the long way’ and ‘besides after your mulch arrives, how much projects that need a wheel barrow in the front do you NEED anymore…’.  Touche hun, touche.  Then again, it is me, and I bet I will find something project wise maybe not next year, maybe not in 2025, but… lmao.  Poor man, just means he now has to haul it over those steps for the rest of his life, right!?   He also insists upon keeping the little 1/3 of the front yard grass (towards the blueberries) as grass.  So even if I mow the lawn, I know an area I will always ‘forget’ to mow until he is available. LMAO.   Really tho, once the patio is done it shouldn’t be bad to go on the grass, over/thru the flagstone patio (see the next chapter of life, that is our next project, and YES I have already been at my addiction, Marketplace, looking for flagstones), and find a way to go up onto the mulch and over too.  Worst case, remove a rock/brick or few that will make up the barrier to keep the mulch off the flagstone patio so no ramp needed… and…. When done just have to sweep up any mulch that made its way onto the flagstone.  No harm done… long winded way of saying, who cares on the 22 inches vs 24inches.

PS, I mowed the lawn the next week, and left that section.  Ha!  He worked a half day and my timing was perfect that when he was pulling in the drive, I was just finishing everything BUT that area.  I digress…

Last fast forward to Saturday evening, tired of course… I said one simple line.  Wow hun, isn’t that really deep for what we wanted for the bricks, we didn’t buy that much gravel because (remember) I wanted the path to sink a little bit here and there to help it look aged.   Had a whatever moment, so I decided it was best to head inside and start dinner.  There is a knock on the dining windows to get my attention … I unlock the front door and go outside to be told – wow this is too deep look at where the bricks would be, and this is where we need them.   RUNt 1, Fake Hubby 0.  So after he had spend HOURS leveling the dirt off and recompacting the dirt… yup, you guessed it, he now had to add dirt and relevel it.  The BEST PART … since we didn’t need the dirt we left he last round of grass without shaking it out to conserve dirt.  I had to dump out a few planters (that I just planted the day before), we had to sweep out the truck for any dirt left after the grass dump run…  thankfully we JUST barely had enough to add a good inch of dirt or more to the whole pathway.  He did most of the front 20 and then called it a night.  He was NOT a happy camper… reminder… he had a one day goal for completion.

Sunday we were up and at ‘em earlier than the day before.  I opened and dumped gravel and sand, he mostly leveling it out and then giving me the go ahead to lay bricks.  While I lay bricks he went back to his dirt filling and leveling to bring the side 50 higher, stopping each time I needed to level out gravel/sand combo.  This worked out well so as a unit we could keep moving.   His daughter was also out with us for the day and helped lay maybe half the bricks or so on the side 50.

Getting a little frustrated and loosing motivation, definitely showed mid Sunday.  We completed laying the path, and it was fairly level, BUT it was very crooked.  While I did NOT want perfection, this was too much for me…. and we left things with the intend of fixing them a bit the next weekend…. We also did another Home Depot run for some landscaping timbers.  I had been stalking telephone poles and other more natural ‘wood’ for a barrier (separate the path from the mulch) and was striking out so we just purchased landscaping timbers – they are rounded on two sides and flat on two sides and the rounded top still gives the path the look of a log, but the flat sides will fit better alongside the brick path.  Nothing done today with them, except unloading them alongside the path.

I ordered some dim rope lights to light up the walkway edge against the timbers and 4 solar mosquito lanterns.  You can EITHER switch them to bug zap or to a light.  We have been leaving them on bug zapper, and after a few days I looked a them, there are bugs stuck to them, so they must be working, albeit just not sure how strong/well.

Fast forward a week and still no rope lights.. and it rained and I fell while running around mile 6 and still had 8 miles to go… no additional path progress and really NO progress period. My hands hurt, shoveling was way out of the question if I wanted to let things heal a bit on Saturday. It was thus a much needed break weekend again. That said Sunday we did remove the grass from the flag stone area. I just loaded up the wheel barrow and tossed it into the truck, the Fake Hubby did all the real work. But at least we felt we did something. Took about two hours. I will catch-up that project this upcoming week/weekend.

Update!  That this weekend the Brick Lady reached out and asked if we wanted the last of the bricks!!  She decided to not use them for a raised garden…  so… as fate would have it – it is GREAT we fell a week behind and didn’t try to poly sand or what not the path…  PLUS remember it was crooked and we haven’t fixed it yet.  We stacked maybe another 75 or 80 bricks onto the path way and called it a night.  I enjoyed the drinks and relaxation and babying my hands.

Fast forward another week, still no rope lights BUT…  I redid the brick path.  I love it… absolutely wonderful.  While I played with those (basically had to relay all the bricks, thus I needed more gravel or had to paw out gravel sand there as I had to ‘relevel’ each brick too as I went.  But we pulled out the worst bricks and then replaced them with these WONDERFUL ones from the Brick Lady.

I set the timbers along side again-we still need to set those/dig those in a bit, but this is where we stand folks!  Still need them dang solar rope lights, getting angry… but… (this was this past Father’s Day weekend)

And while I did the brick redo – the Fake Hubby dug out the dirt of the flag stone patio.  You can see those in the background.

To be Continued…. But we are almost there!

#JustRUNt