Let me tell you a bit about what I’ve done this week. Over the course of two long days, I built a small extension to my back yard concrete patio out of pavers. This required:
- Digging out the place for the pavers.
This was tougher than it sounds. The ground in my yard is already well compacted clay, so digging into it was difficult. The space for the pavers needed to be level and only a few inches deep. Since it was next to an existing concrete pad, there was some leftover aggregate and concrete spillover to contend with as well. - Compacting the soil.
- Laying down a weed barrier.
OK, these were relatively easy, since the ground was already packed clay. - Adding leveling sand.
Sand comes in fifty pound bags (around 23 kilos), and I underestimated the amount I needed. So I had to make multiple trips to get enough for my needs, and move them all multiple times.
It looks finished from 50 feet away. - Installing edging to keep the pavers in place.
Pavers stay where they are because they are under tension between immovable barriers. The concrete is a barrier on one side, and the edgers are the barriers on the others. They need to be held in place with long lawn spikes. - Laying down the pavers.
I purchased sixty concrete pavers weighing ~17 pounds each (around 7 kilos), for a total of 1,020 pounds. I moved them each three times (into the truck, out of the truck, and into the patio), for a total of a ton and a half of lifting. By hand. Carefully, so I didn’t break them. - Locking them in with polymeric sand, and Back-filling the edges with dirt.
OK, these final steps still aren’t done yet.
Why am I telling you all this? Because this project is, for me, what all my new coding projects look like, and what I think coding may look like for new coders.
Characteristics of a New Project
My patio project followed a pattern I’ve seen for every new project I try. Maybe you’ve experienced these in your new endeavors as well.
Lack of Experience
First, I’ve never done anything like this before. I’ve seen it done on home improvement shows and YouTube videos, but never did it myself. I knew it could be done by DIY homeowners, but I had no idea if I would be successful doing it.
I certainly had no experience dealing with all the little problems that came up. On top of dozens of little issues, some of the more notable were:
- I didn’t know how much sand to buy to fill the trench high enough.
- My base pads were too wide and needed to be trimmed down.
- Do I put the edging under or over the base pads?
- My measurements were a little off, which required some creativity to deal with.
- There were large rocks and concrete spillover which needed to be removed.
- Where do I put all this dirt and sod I’m digging out?
Some of the steps were easily understood but difficult to do, like digging a trench in clay or moving half a ton of concrete pavers. The rest represented problems that cropped up that I needed to solve to move forward.
Old Bones
In fact, I had one previous experience with an outdoor home improvement project. Thirty years ago, I tried to build a storage shed from raw lumber and a kit. I built the floor and had three walls up, but then didn’t know how to build a roof. Instead of asking for help, I abandoned the project.
The half-built shed stood for years in my backyard, marking my failure as a builder, before the rain and wind finally destroyed it. It was thirty years before I tried anything even close to that ambitious again.
Waiting for the Perfect Start
I bought the pavers the week before, and they sat around waiting for me to start. I was waiting for the perfect conditions to do so. You see, it’s summer here, and that means hot and humid weather, and I wanted to work in the cool and dry.
Fear of Failure
There was also the experience with the shed I was fighting. I knew there were things I didn’t know, and I really wanted to know all the unknowns before I started. I knew that years ago, the unknowns turned an expensive pile of wood into a big tombstone of dry-rotted kindling.
Broken Routines
This was not easy work. There was a lot of sweat, some blood shed, and plenty of colorful metaphors hurled into the air on this project. Normally, I run three to four days a week to stay in shape. This week, I didn’t have the energy. I did get on my bicycle for a while over this past weekend, it a week without running represents a break in my normal routine.
I’m Too Busy
This project also kept me away from my computer for most of the week as well. I was able to process email and handle a few small things, but I haven’t been able to write as I normally do. I took a break from that part of my life as well.
Lessons Learned
Do you find you new endeavors are like this?
- You go into them without knowing everything, maybe with a monkey on your back from a past failure.
- You gather your materials and some knowledge, but don’t quite know what to do next.
- Maybe the fear of failure keeps you moving forward.
- So, you wait for the perfect conditions, the perfect entry point, the perfect knowledge, that one little thing you need to guarantee success.
And while you wait for the perfect conditions to magically assemble themselves, your project slowly but surely turns into a half-built pile of dry-rotted wood in the backyard of your mind, a marker of that really cool and useful thing you wanted to build but just couldn’t get around to doing.
Getting Past the Past
It took me a week to finally figure it all out. If I waited for the perfect conditions and the perfect amount of knowledge, I would never start, and therefore never finish. I had to get stuck in and figure it out on the fly. I had to be willing to fail, and willing to ask for help if I needed it.
Because if I didn’t, the pile of patio blocks and paver base and sand bags would be just like the old rotted shed, a grave marker for the final resting place of my cool and useful ideas.
So, is my patio extension perfect? Not even close. There are places where the blocks are uneven, where there are dips and drops, and where I didn’t measure right and had to break a paver to fill the gap. The two final steps have yet to be completed, but that will be done today.
The important thing is that I ignored my fear of failure, got over my lack of experience, asked for help when I needed it, and just started.