Patio Update

10 Comments

Posted by Rebecca, May 10th, 2011

These past few days have been absolutely insane. I finished up a final paper and presentation last night, while Mike was in San Francisco attending the SF MusicTech Summit for his gig with SongMeanings. My semester from hell is over and I picked him up from the airport tonight, so we can finally resume our normal lives 🙂

The patio was poured last week in the midst of all of this chaos. While we were super excited about it, we could hardly focus on it. So it was good that we weren’t doing the work 🙂 At last update, the patio was anxiously awaiting a sealer. Mike got a call this morning (while in Cali) informing him that the concrete company was stopping by today to put the sealer on. In between work and picking up Mike from the airport, I managed to squeeze some time in for photos.

We were anxious to get the sealer on because we knew it would change the color of the concrete, but in these pictures, it was still wet.

Oh! Last week they also came to put the cuts in the concrete where they expected it to crack naturally. So in the picture above you can see one along the curve. It’s probably the most obvious one, thankfully. Because of the wood plank pattern we chose, the cuts mostly follow the lines like this one below.

Some areas were still very obviously wet, like the area where our future outdoor kitchen will be.

We’re thinking of maybe adding a step in the center of the patio, leading onto the grass. The far side of the patio is 8 inches above ground, so it will be a nice entrance to the open space.

We plan on filling each curved side up with mulch and some landscaping for now, so we’ll see how that looks before deciding on the step(s).

We also plan on staining the unfinished stairs a nice and dark color.

So if I’m being completely honest here, I’ll tell you that I was a little disappointed that the concrete wasn’t as dark as I imagined (it’s actually a little lighter than shown in these pictures).  But I thought it would be okay with our dark stairs and future dark furniture. The patio has a weathered look to it that I like, but remember our inspiration photo?

We knew it wouldn’t be THIS dark, since we were warned about burning feet and fading, but the color we chose was called “walnut”. I also know that the sealer wasn’t dry when I saw it and it did look darker than it did yesterday.

When I picked up Mike from his 6 hour flight, he told me that the concrete company called and they want to come back and do another round of stain/sealer tomorrow. Yay! I thought I was going crazy about the color, but just a tad darker would be wonderful 🙂  I thought I was looking at the (not yet dry) finished product, but now I have to wait until tomorrow!

ps- I finally decided to order the Belmont patio collection from Target so that we’ll have somewhere to sit on the patio when the sealer is all done, but it’s sold out!! I emailed Target (since I checked everyday, for 8 straight days) and they have no clue when it will be back in. Cross your fingers it’s soon! I need this prettiness on my already pretty patio.

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10 Responses to “Patio Update”

  1. well the stamped concrete looks absolutely amazing! That is hands-down my favorite concrete selection I have ever seen! NICE JOB! Also, praying you get your patio furniture! I would be a gorgeous addition to that very inviting patio!
    Ashley@DesignBuildLove.co recently posted..We love to Cook! and our Kitchen totally accomodates!

  2. ALittleBite says:

    I looove the stamped concrete! I’m sure the maintenance is way better than a wood deck, too. Also, the patio furniture looks really nice, I’ll cross my fingers that it gets there on time so you can enjoy your new patio asap!
    ALittleBite recently posted..Chocolate Milano Cookies

  3. That looks awesome! I’m so jealous!

    If you don’t have any luck with the Target furniture, maybe this from Pier 1? I don’t think they have a dining set part of the collection though, so that may be an issue.

    • Rebecca says:

      Hey Cait, I didn’t get a chance to respond to your last comment, but we checked out the Pier 1 set in person a little while back. It was okay, we just weren’t overwhelmed by it. But it’s back in the running now since we want to be able to sit outside soon! 🙂

      • Cait @ Hernando House says:

        That makes sense! I definitely haven’t seen it in person, I just thought it looked like a good option. Good luck with Operation Sit Outside Soon!
        Cait @ Hernando House recently posted..Planters Nuts

  4. I think that patio looks great. And how much of a wonderful homecoming gift for Mike to be able to come home and see the finished product!
    brandt @ NewHouseOnTheBlog recently posted..The To-Do List

  5. Alison says:

    I had to keep reminding myself that the patio was made out of stamped concrete- it looks so good. Seems like it it will be a breeze to maintain and you won’t ever have to worry about slivers. Enjoy!

  6. Abby Portland says:

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  7. Michele says:

    I love this concrete. we are wanting to do something different in our backyard and it is a pretty big area. I just wasn’t sure how expensive it was. I saw you posted the color walnut…is that correct?

  8. John says:

    Curious on an update. Are you still happy with the concrete?

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