5C's Que Pasa

Instead of having a special Easter Sunday meal we were treated to some sandblasting. Back on my April 17th post I gave some history as to why we needed to have this done.  We were fortunate to have found this company as there are only two in all of the Kelowna area and the other company wanted $575.00 more which Colin was willing to pay.  We have put so much money into this patio, first in building it years ago, sealing it and them trying to remove the discoloured sealant.  Not including the money to build the original patio ( we could have gone first to class to Europe three times – for six weeks each time), we must have put in close to four thousand additional dollars.  Our mistake was clear coating/sealing the patio to protect it, instead it ruined it.  So to pay only $750.00 to get our patio back to near normal compared  to when we installed it was an easy decision.  Needless to say, the patio will never be sealed again.

The before photo.

The after photo.  The deeper colour on the bottom left is part of a sidewalk addition we did with coloured concrete.

Quite the job. The head cover also provided air to breathe.  The black on the patio is the sand.

As all the noise and dust was going on, this fellow just paddled on past.  Fortunately we had warned the renter next door and the folks behind us in our old place ( they don’t know that we built that home, they are the third owners ) that there would be nasty dust flying around.

The sand used was of a black color. Turns out that they used 600 pounds of sand on our patio.

You can’t even see the sand coming out of his hose because of the high pressure.  The fellow told us that the pressure was so high that it would take the flesh off your arm right down to the bone, instantly.  Funny thing is that he is only wearing running shoes as his steel toe boots were rubbing his ankles.  Good thing he had a steady hand.  You can see here how only a part of the slab has been cleaned.

This is his Dad who had started the company. His job was to blow the sand away so that his son could see what he might have missed.

Another example of the difference of the sandblasted slabs vs the other slabs. The sandblasting has returned the slabs to their original colour.

The sand did not fly far, it merely nestled in the grass and the rocks along the waterfront. However the blasted debris of clear coating, a layer of the hydro pressed slabs and dirt flew everywhere.  Including covering our vehicles at the front of the house.

Despite having the windows closed the sand still found a way inside.

Actually everything from our patio furniture to the BBQ to our windows ( which we just paid to have cleaned only thirteen days prior ) had a film on them.  The fellows used their strong blower on most things but the windows needed to be redone.  I was texting our window guy when I saw Colin out there.  He did do all the ones that had been affected.  In fact he worked very hard to clean the entire yard up. And later the inside of our home.

The patio looks nice and fresh, no longer multi coloured and dirty.

A lovely change to our patio.  Looking forward to all of of summer visitors sitting here enjoying a sunset with us. And maybe a glass of vino 🙂

One of the few wooden pieces on our home is the framing of our patio door. It gets direct sunlight a good deal of the day.  Sometime over the summer we need to sand it down and re paint it.

At one point yesterday I came outside and saw that one half of our basement had been moved onto the patio.

He is wearing knee pads and is rolling around on a board on casters.  We have tons of space under our home ( 44′ x 22′ ) and keep a good deal under there.  The kayaks are on the left of those support beams.  Further back behind Colin we have many bins full of Christmas decorations from our huge home, some of my ballroom dancing clothes and shoes, seven years plus of accounting information, suitcases, much photography equipment and who knows what else.  The last two years when we were flooded and almost flooded we moved all the cardboard upstairs and got rid of what we could and pretty much everything is now in plastic tubs.  However I believe that we have some oriental carpets as well original paintings under there as well.  No one wants to buy them and so because we have the space we keep them.  We have six doors into our crawl space making for easy access to our things.

Colin found these nice wrought iron plant caddies underneath and a few other items that we no longer used.  So I listed them on the park buy and sell page.

The compressor was purchased a few years ago at a garage sale and never used.  I sold it for the same price we paid for it.  I also sold a pair of new orthotic sandals than never fit me from day one and were never worn outside.

I listed these and the bike baskets as free. So we sold two items and made $80.00 with little effort. I am surprised that no one wants the plant caddies.

When we moved here we could not afford to remove the cement patio that was already here.  We hired a fellow who installed our chosen 24″ x 24 ” x 2″ hydropressed slabs over the existing concrete as well as expanding in different directions.

The water here is hard and the rust from our sprinklers changed the colour of the slabs.

Over the years Colin had the patio clear coated. Then that started to peel and not look good.  We tried using different chemicals to try to remove it.  We are not happy with the look of our patio.  Colin has been looking for two years  for a solution and may have found one.

The snow isn’t leaving anytime soon.

We have a reverse osmosis system under the kitchen sink with a UV filter.  All the filters need to be changed annually but because we are only here half the year we only do it every two years and yesterday was the day.

We have tried everything to get our patio back to normal. A few years ago we hired a guy with a massive power washer inside his  truck. It only got some of the sealer off. The new idea is sandblasting.

Colin took one piece in to see how it would look.  We like it, the colour is back.

Dinner last night  was a stir fry with almost the last of our Mazatlan shrimp, we have enough for one more meal.

One pound of shrimp along with onion, carrots, broccoli, mushrooms and kale made for a very yummy dinner with leftovers for lunch today.