Window Well and Pavers

Welcome to the jungle behind our house! For years, this is where the weeds would call home. This year, I decided to do something about it, and replace the unsightly window well in the process.

This project began, like many yard projects, with a shovel. I dug a hole around the steel window well, and pulled it out.

Next, I dug a little deeper, then put down “paver base,” which is a sand-gravel mix that I bought at Menards. I compacted the base layer, then started laying my bricks.

We used 6×9 Quarry Gray bricks that we bought at Menard’s.
My Makita angle grinder with a mason blade had no trouble cutting through these!

The window well bricks are spaced out 1/2″ further each layer, and are held together with landscape block construction adhesive.

Also bought a Tamper for this project–one of those boring tools that just takes up space.

After creating the window well, I dug out 5″ deep all around the area where pavers would be placed. I needed to go 5″ deep, because I needed 3″ of paver base and the bricks themselves are 2″ deep.

This is the pattern we used. The orange dots represent 6×9 bricks, the green dots represent 3×6 bricks and the blue dots represent 6×6 bricks. Sara crossed them out as we went.

I was surprised at how easily the pavers went into place. I have always heard that the hardest part of making a patio is the preparation, and good prep certainly made the rest of the process very easy!

I put white gravel in the bottom of the window well.

We finished the project by putting polymeric sand in the cracks (when mixed with water, it bonds together, preventing weeds from growing)

We’re very happy with the results. Maybe someday, we will get rid of the cement patio and expand it further!

Thanks for reading!

-Mike

Basement Before and After

It took six years, but our basement family room is finally one of our favorite rooms in the house!  Getting to this point was not easy.  We had to wait until we had the money to buy furniture, while also deciding where to put it in the challenging space.  The room’s layout didn’t leave us with many options:  you walk in from the north, there is a fireplace on the west wall, a large window on the south wall, and the east wall has a wet bar.  I’ll explain more about the furniture in a moment, but first, here is a look back at how the room looked shortly after we bought the house:

Back in 2013, we changed the color of the room from yellow, to “Irish Mist,” a Behr Premium Plus paint color.

After that, the room essentially became our workout area.

It’s also where we feed the cats (Robert waiting patiently)

In the following couple of years, friends and family gifted us hand-me-down furniture and carpet remnants, and the room began to feel more like a living room.

We knew we wanted to someday put a big-screen TV in the room, along with a big, comfy sectional couch, but first, we wanted to update the wet bar:

Click here to see the wet bar makeover project and click here to see what it took to mount the sink in the countertop.  The cabinets are painted Behr Graphic Charcoal.

Here is one last picture of the room, before we bought new furniture:

And here are the after photos:

The TV is a TCL 65″ Roku that we bought from Costco.  It sits on a hardwood TV stand, which we also found at Costco.  Thanks to my friend Eric for helping me lift it into the basement!

The couch is a Rainier 3-piece sectional that we found at Hom Furniture (pillows included).

Go Hawks!

As you can see, we support the Iowa Hawkeyes, University of Northern Iowa Panthers, Minnesota Wild, and are now on a mission to find something to hang up to support the Minnesota Vikings and Twins.  We also installed a power outlet in the wall for the neon clock.

Thanks for reading!

-Mike