Pond in Southern Illinois

[Sheetmetalman]

Another weekend and another day of laying brick--I also relearned something I had forgotten--little brick is a Bit$# to lay compared to the bigger 1 foot square brick, LOL. Oh well I will be done with the 2 areas that have the little brick after this weekend--then just 2 more area's of large brick--then the brick sidewalk to the house--and the brick landscape edging--then FREEDOM--maybe. Here is pics of what little I've got done--hope to finish before snow flys--which sounds strange on this 100 degree day in September.

 

[HARO]

Nice work. Love it!!! John

 

[baeya]

so pretty!! You'll have paradise is your yard! What did you use for your waterfall, it looks so straight and even?

 

[addy1]

Beautiful job! fantastic, what a paradise.

 

[Sheetmetalman]

Baeya, I like Granite and I found 3 slabs of black/gold Granite on Craigslist--the only problem was they were 2 foot x 4 foot x 3 1/2 inches thick--they weighed a ton. I had to build a heavy duty stair-step support system to hold all the weight, originally I intended to just form step supports out of the clay of my waterfall hill but each slab weighed over 300 lbs and I was afraid that they would slide into the pond without real support.

 

[CountryEscape]

Wow, looks fantastic! Great job, and what a paradise! I bet you are enjoying your pond as much as I am, both of us having built ours this summer. You will really enjoy it on your new patios that you are creating, and I sure love the effect! Like the red and gray contrast you're doing as well! Thanks for sharing your progress! Hope you got some rain tonight, and that tomorrow will be cooler for your work.

 

[Sheetmetalman]

yea, I'm hopeing for cooler weather tommorow also Patti. I'm glad I did the red and charcoal pattern too--plan on doing the last 2 corner sections in large 1 foot brick with red and charcoal too but a little different pattern layout than what I'm doing with the small brick--if I do it right I'm hopeing it will tie all 5 Patio sections together in a cohesive pattern that looks right and not mishmashed.

 

[j.w]

Looks so nice, lots of hard work.....take a break on Monday................bet ya won't tho huh

 

[koiguy1969]

nicely done sheetmetalman....

 

[addy1]

Great idea on build the support for your granite, that stuff is heavy, I just love the look of it. Love the brick work.
I like what you have done, maybe can talk honey into doing the small bricks for our top slope path, maybe lol
My honey wants to take my scrap concrete steps.............I just recycled some stuff left here, and put in something nicer. He will need to lift those suckers, around 100 lbs each and carry back down the hill. I have moved them too many times now. Most likely will use them on the real steep slope that I seem to always be climbing up.

I am sure it will look great and not mismatched sheetmetalman. Similar colors join different sizes, patterns nicely.

 

[CountryEscape]

Can't wait to see the rest of it Tim! I love the look, and how you are using different sizes of pavers. I have what is called "euro" pattern (looks like keyhole) for my sidewalk from in front of the house to the back. Wanted to do something different for around the pond or a patio area on the far side of the pond, and now after seeing what you have done, I'm sure that I can incorporate different style of pavers for that area. It sill be curved, and no way to curve the euro stones. I have a cutter now, so I guess I could cut, but that would be a LOT of work. LOL It is a "next year" project anyhow Rest of this year is to enjoy what is done so far. You have come a LONG way since you began your project! You and your wife will sure enjoy the area. And, always nice to see how others have done their projects and get ideas for our own!

 

[Sheetmetalman]

Thats exactly what I love about this site--everybody is free with information and advice and encouragement, and I have used a lot of ideas that I found here in my own project. On another note if any of you want to just call me Tim, instead of writing Sheetmetalman everytime please feel free to--I should have picked a shorter nickname I guess, LOL.

 

[Sunshine]

The patios are awesome. I like the different patterns. Great job !!

 

[taherrmann4]

Thats exactly what I love about this site--everybody is free with information and advice and encouragement, and I have used a lot of ideas that I found here in my own project. On another note if any of you want to just call me Tim, instead of writing Sheetmetalman everytime please feel free to--I should have picked a shorter nickname I guess, LOL.

I did the same thing didn't think about it at the time. JW shortened mine for me, I think she was tired of typing mine out I think and just came up with Tmann and so some use that for me.

 

[addy1]

It is fun to share what we know and learn Tim.............lol that is a lot easier.