Our Home Works

We did a lot of business at Lane Forest Products this spring.  We made about a dozen trips to dump off sod strippings and to pick up soil amendments and mulch for our lawn-to-crop conversion in the front 40.  Part of Lane’s check-out system is a drive-by display of their bulk products.  It’s a totally practical system, so you can preview what you are getting before a loader dumps scoopfuls into your truck or trailer.  It’s also an effective way to show off a wide range of materials that cause a customer’s brain - this one included – to ponder other projects.   In my case, it was seeing their decomposed granite – referred to “DG” in the trade - that triggered a vision for remodeling our deck perimeter and firepit area.

It’s a material we’ve been intrigued with incorporating into our yard for a couple of years, after seeing it frequently used on a vacation we made to Santa Cruz and the Bay Area.  We particularly liked the buff color and it’s texture.  The job was also an opportunity to install some clay brick, another desire that’s been brewing.

First task was to remove an existing skim coat of 3/8 minus crushed rock and good amount of soil below it.  Not fun, but I did unearth an artifact and good omen in the process – an old rusty horseshoe.  I set the new subgrade to about 4” below where I wanted the finished surface.  I used several string lines and one eyeball to dial it in.  Meanwhile I picked up over 100 bricks, to establish an edge between the DG and plant bed interfaces.  I broke them all in half (with a cold chisel and mallet) so I could set them on end with shallower excavation and to “double” the material – ie less work and less cost.  Bricks were acquired from Willamette Graystone, Inca red color. 

After resetting about a dozen existing square walking pavers, I put down about 2” of 3/8” minus crushed rock, tamped it in and then added the topping coat of the DG, about 2”.  I then fanned the whole area with water, let it settle and then added more material and repeated the shower.  Start to finish, the whole process filled the better part of a weekend and then a couple of evenings after that, completed just in time for an office party last week.  The total DG volume for the job was about 1 yard.