Retirement is not just leisure time spent rafting, kayaking, backpacking and hiking -- those stories and photos from this summer are forthcoming later!! This summer's house improvement project was the demolition and replacement of the cement patio facing the golf course.  The existing patio was probably poured in 1979 when the house was built.  It had some major cracks in it, and had sunk some in front of the sliding glass windows, which caused a lovely and dangerous ice rink to form where one steps outside.  This was caused in part by the fact that the patio was level -- so no slope to allow water to drain off.  This needed to be fixed. The hardest part of any house project is finding someone to do the work. Smaller residential projects are definitely more difficult to get a service interested.  After asking around, two different sources both highly recommended the contractor we went with, and we are very pleased with the results. Mid July, day one of the project, the first hole is punched thru with the jackhammer. The immediate big surprise was that it was hollow underneath the patio!!  This explains why the patio sunk as it began cracking. Hot and dusty work.  All the debris was hand loaded in to a wheelbarrow and dumped in to a trailer. The cinder block wall along the perimeter had portions that crumbled during the demolition, which requires patching later. In order to provide a proper base for the new cement, gravel was brought in, in a wheelbarrow by hand.  The planks were put down as a roadway for the wheelbarrow. Starting to shape up.  Gravel in place, which went thru a number of tamping iterations, and the framing for the cement is getting put in place. The north side of the house was the last area to be demolished. This allowed them easier wheelbarrow access for removing debris and bringing gravel in.  The only issue is that we discovered some rot on the siding on the north side only a few days before the cement was scheduled to be poured.  Ideally it is easier to repair it before the concrete is poured, but we did not want to delay the patio work.  So we will deal with the siding issues later. Note the cinder block wall was weak on this side of the house. I actually was not present for the concrete pouring.  I was off on a multi-day backpacking adventure. Yesterday (8/20), I was finally able to paint the sides of new patio.  Painting about 2 feet of wall at ground level is a killer on my knees! The dark paint helps hide the mismatch between new concrete and old cinder block on the side wall.  The issue with the siding rot remains as a new separate house repair task. The new patio has about a 2.5 inch slope from the house to the outside.  This should be enough to prevent snow melt from pooling next to the house. Successful completion of yet another big house project.  We are very pleased with the results.