Our Patio

My patio is pretty much my most favorite place to be regardless if I am by myself or with friends and family.  So seeing a little sunshine and warmer weather has brought me back out to my "happy place".  We had our patio built when we built our home back in 2005/2006.  One of the best investments we did. 

However, shortly after we moved in a small hairline crack began to show in the stamped concrete.  Over the past ten years the crack has increased and shown itself to be an eye sore. 

I've tried to ignore it over the years, because we've had several contractors comment that its cosmetic and not anything more. It was patched a few times but didn't seem to hold itself in place.

About a month ago while having a fire in our outdoor fireplace with the family we noticed that the countertop area was sloping in the middle -  All you had to do was push on the tile to feel it was a wet soggy mess underneath.  After doing a little investigating we quickly found that the wood under the tile is completely rotten and falling apart.

So the following week I called my sweet friend who did our family room remodel over to take a peek at what was going on, while we waited for him to show that week, we also realized that the roof is also leaking in a certain area with big drops of rain and could see mold growing between the beautiful wood work.....ugh....I mean what the heck?

When he came out to look at all of what was happening - he pointed out that the corner pillar is tilted and suggested we have a company come out to see if it could be lifted which might be the fix to handle all our problems. 

Which is what we did. The company came out and said our problem was larger than just him, and suggested a wrongly placed downspout may be our true issue - the downspout is close to the house and most likely isn't draining and filling the area into the roof and under the concrete patio - which means most of what is under our roofing is rotting along with the fireplace, countertops, patio, and barbeque are....meaning a large contractor would need to be called in to investigate and give advice.

I immediately called our builder who said he would come out and take a look within the week - never heard from him after that first call. Texted and called a couple more times. Again never heard from him, which is very frustrating.  My husband decided we would call a contractor as we didn't know how quickly this issue needed to be addressed. 

We reached out to a few companies but decided on Riccon Construction - for us, they felt the most reliable and trustworthy. After hearing that the project would be aggressive,, we decided to go ahead and make a few changes that would benefit our large family!  I can't wait to share the progress with you over the next several weeks!  

Most of all, I look forward to redecorating this area for our family! oxox, tracie