Pewterpower
New Member
...and I discovered that my sidewalk making skills suck.
My sidewalk leading out of the front door, runs the length of the house about a foot away from the house. I've always used this 1 ft area as flower bed, but there is this one little section that I have always wanted to fill in with concrete. So today was the day.
First off, there is a sewer clean out right smack in the middle of this little section. It never bothered me before cuz it was always mulched up and had flowers around it. But after I stripped all of that away, Idiscovered that the clean out sticks up way too high.
So I got it lowered, and found a flush cap to put on it so it can be walked over without being a trip hazard.
Now the concrete......
I used plain old Quikrete but I underestimated by a little bit. I was about 1/2 inch too low, so I got a bag of sand/topping mix and I'm glad of it cuz I COULD NOT for the life of me make the Quikrete concrete smooth.
So I fussed and I troweled and I smoothed and I edged and I repeated all that crap about a million times. It finally looks acceptable.
I'm sure there is a simple little trick to making smooth sidewalks, but I don't know it.
My sidewalk leading out of the front door, runs the length of the house about a foot away from the house. I've always used this 1 ft area as flower bed, but there is this one little section that I have always wanted to fill in with concrete. So today was the day.
First off, there is a sewer clean out right smack in the middle of this little section. It never bothered me before cuz it was always mulched up and had flowers around it. But after I stripped all of that away, Idiscovered that the clean out sticks up way too high.
So I got it lowered, and found a flush cap to put on it so it can be walked over without being a trip hazard.
Now the concrete......
I used plain old Quikrete but I underestimated by a little bit. I was about 1/2 inch too low, so I got a bag of sand/topping mix and I'm glad of it cuz I COULD NOT for the life of me make the Quikrete concrete smooth.
So I fussed and I troweled and I smoothed and I edged and I repeated all that crap about a million times. It finally looks acceptable.
I'm sure there is a simple little trick to making smooth sidewalks, but I don't know it.