Google=Genius!

If Google was just a search engine, they would be great, if Google was happy with expanding into free sofware such as Google Earth, then they would be awesome. However they are in the genius category after their latest free download called SketchUp. Thanks to a tip from houseblogs I decided to download the software. I never thought I would even get around to using it, let alone actually liking the 3d rendering software. But after the first 20 seconds of using it, I learned this was nothing like the photoshop or illustrator or any other image software that takes a good 6 hours to get up to speed. The tutorial takes about 15 minutes to complete, and everything else is self explanatory. This sketch took about 20 minutes.

Concrete Finished!

after waiting almost 1 year for the perfect day for pouring colored concrete, the job is finally done. And Wow does it look nice. We used a chicago brick pattern, with red brick as the color and walnut as the release.

A very interesting (and expensive) process to stamp concrete.

1 contractor ordered a special mix of red concrete
2 pour
3 dust the stamp in the release color
4 press the stamp into the fresh concrete
5 let the concrete dry overnight
6 power wash off most of the reease color the next day
7 let the concrete completely cure (about 3-5 days)
8 completly sweep the dry driveway
9 spray a sealer on the concrete
10 let the sealer cure for 3-5 days

the finished product looks outstanding and would recomend it to anybody.