Oh, No, They Didn't.

The people down the street from my house are constantly outdoors, working on their yard and gardens, which are, of course, *gorgeous*.  I admit, when the two-story next to them came up for sale, I went to the open house just so I could get on the top floor and look out the window down into their backyard to see what it looks like.  Gorgeous!

So, when I saw them doing Something Very Serious in the yard over the holiday weekend, I was mightily intrigued.  A huge area of ground in front of the porch and front garden had been de-sodded, raked and pounded flat, and was marked out with  twine - what was going on??

Yesterday morning on my way to work I saw what they did there -  they'd made a little extension to their front porch with a Quikcrete Walkmaker.  Same thing I used to make the stones on my back patio:

laying down the "stones" for the first time, with the Walkmaker, in 2006

new arrangement of the same "stones", in 2010

I'm a huge fan of the Walkmaker;  but not such a huge fan of how my "stones" came out.  Sure, they look nifty, but when I poured them, I used concrete in the molds instead of cement.  The difference being that concrete is cement with aggregate -  gravel - mixed in, which makes the material stronger, but also makes it extremly rough underfoot.  My patio is NOT for walking on with bare feet, and it makes me sad to have made this mistake.

And sure enough, as slowed down to get a better look at my neighbors' project, being the Nosy Nancy that I am, they'd done the exact same thing - I could see the bumply, rumply concrete texture even from my car window.  Oh no!  I hope they don't plan to walk on that patio with bare feet!

Looks great, though. :)


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