Welcome to Paverland

Once upon a time there was a boy and girl who decided to make a nice addition to their landscaping. They wanted to do something different for an RV pad than just poor cement like all the neighbors, so they decided to do driveway pavers. It looks a lot more decorative and is half the cost of concrete. They began with Step 1: Excavation. No problem, they only have to dig 12 inches down. They dug, and dug, and dug all day long. Then they measured. AAHH, only 3 inches. It seemed like no matter how much they dug, which by now it had been every Friday and Saturday for a month, it never measured 12 inches. Finally, about 6 weeks into it, that they reached 12 inches. Now for Step 2: 7 inches of gravel. The whole big pile of gravel was dumped onto their driveway where it sat for 3 full months until they had a whole weekend to work on it again. It wasn't all unpleasant, the kids had something to climb on, Mom had something to sweep up daily, and if they were giving directions to their house, they just told everyone to look for the big pile of rocks on the driveway. Nobody seemed to have any problem finding them. Finally, a free weekend was found. They laid the gravel, then time for the next layer. Step 3: Sand. That'll be easy, they only have to do 3 inches of that. The problem is that they got enough sand delivered for 8 inches so now they have a huge pile of sand on their driveway. The whole time they were laying the gravel and sand, Paxton had learned a new way to slide on his stomach face first down the pile of sand. He thought it was a huge sandbox and was more messy than when they go to the beach. One little neighbor boy even came over to ask when they were getting the box for all their sand. Don't worry little boy, that will be next years project. Step 4: Laying the pavers. The nice part is that laying them is pretty easy, it just takes a long time when there's a ton of them! There were times they thought this fairytale had turned into a Stephen King novel and then finally it was done!!!! There was quite a bit of blood and pain involved but at least nobody died! Here are some of the statistics from their project in case any of you ever think it would be a nice to lay pavers. The best suggestion they could give is to either pay for Home Depot to do it for you or just poor concrete. No one will ever know there was a different option.

Dirt to excavate: 582 square feet
Gravel: 12 tons
Sand: 12 tons
Total weight of Pavers: 19,129 lbs.
# of pavers to lay: 2,328
# of Gloves we went through: 6 pairs
# of extra baths we had to give Paxton just from this project: 14
# of battle wounds (blood blisters, cuts, scrapes, smashed fingers): 32
# of pain killers we went through: 36
# of bandaids: we lost track after the second box.
Knowing we will never do it again: Priceless