Outdoor Shower & Island Update

August 1, 2013 at 3:37 pm (DIY, Island, Nature)
Tags: nice walk, Outdoor Projects, Outdoor Shower, patio stones

The floor is complete!

This weekend, we made some more progress on the shower, despite the unusual cold (it was a high of only 62 that weekend, and I was wearing jeans, long sleeve shirt and a fleece jacket the whole weekend L ). We lugged all of the stones to the island….that was hard. Each stone weight 42 pounds and our boat say s it can only carry 500 pounds total. But we did manage to get them all over to the island in only tow boat trips (and one 30 min drive from the hardware store).

My original design of the shower:

I love the simplicity I built into the design. In the design there is a 5” gap around the big patio stones and a 1.5” gap between each stone and then the gaps are filled in with small pea stones.. To get this gap was very easy, the 4×4 posts are actually 3.5”x 3.5” and some scrap 2x4s are actually 1.5”x 3.5”. So to get the gaps I want, I just use the scrap 2x4s as spacers when I placed the stones. For the first stone, use two 2x4s against the 4×4 to place the first stone.

Then for each additional stone, use the 2x4s for spacers between each stone.

I know I would have a problem with just one stone based on this design:

I was planning on using a circular saw to cut the stone, so the 4×4 fits, but we decided to try a chisel first, since the stone did have some natural breaks already to pound into.

Unfortunately, after just a few hits, it broke a big piece than we expected. But, the pea stones will fill in the gap and I think I will still look good.