Cheating With Slate

Yes, I have to admit it. We've been cheating with our slate stone in our backyard. We cheated on TV and we've cheated on every picture I've shown you on this site. We have sprayed the stone with water to achieve that coveted "wet look" because the dry look was not nearly as interesting. But the plan all along was to seal the tile with a wet look sealer, we just needed two nice weekend days in a row to be able to accomplish that. And with the weather in hovering around 70 degrees and sunny all weekend, this was the time to do it.

First off, we got the rest of our solar lights installed around the upper seating area, shown here with the actual look of the non-sealed stone

Then we got all of our acacia chairs put together and installed for the upper patio. All they need now are seat cushions

That was all done through the help of Eric's patented "Bucket o' Allen Wrenches" Yes; Eric has a HUGE collection of allen wrenches in every shape and size to meet every possible need an allen wrench could provide. It's even labeled just in case you didn't know what they were. I make fun of Eric for this collection all the time, which is the main reason I am putting the picture up on this site—he made some seriously offended faces when he saw me take a photo of his bucket. Anyone who sees this says "man, I've never seen so many allen wrenches in my life!" There are a lot of them.

Then we primed and pained all the fresh air, air handling unit and Dryer/Stove vents out to the backyard. The HVAC guys who installed them had left all the stickers on them so we needed a bunch of Goof Off to get all those stickers off and to get these things clean enough to paint. Finished products:

For the big hole where these two vents come up we used to have a piece of cement board that covered the hole so no one could accidently fall down. Unfortunately that was taken away during the landscaping work and never recovered. Gino our landscaper had said he would make a wood covering for this section for us so we'll send him the dimensions shortly to make that happen. As it stands now it's not extremely kid or pet friendly. But it does look a lot less ugly. We painted with Rustoleum's Rusty Metal Primer and finished with their Hammered Copper.

Then came the fun part: we got on our hands and knees and scrubbed every single stone in the upper patio section clean. Once they dried we applied a wet look natural stone sealer made by Behr with a paintbrush on every stone. We laid the sealer on very thick and allowed it to dry overnight. When it was wet it had an iridescent quality to it that just looks odd. We lost the light at that point we just needed so let it sit overnight at that point. SO later on today we will finish up painting around the vents and do the same hands and knees cleaning and sealing on the lower patio area.

In the house: kitty progress! They are far from friends, Monkey is way too high strung for Jules' tastes, but them sleeping this close to one another is a big step in the right direction

Comments

[Tijmen Stam]

Question: in the 4th pic, the fence looks really warped - is it supposed to be that way???

[dana]

good catch! we called the fence company about that as that whole panel bows slightly...they were out last week to look at it and said the whole panel needs to be replaced but they needed to special order our color. it should be fixed in the next couple of weeks--it has a warranty for as long as we own the house. Can't get anything past Tijmen!