The driveway/carport is finished, except I gotta take the forms off today and clean up.

It went well, and I did it all by myself, except the pouring and finishing and the shoveling and moving of gravel. It cost less than $1500.

The cats, chickens and I messed it up.

The pour started at 3:30 PM, and it was 5 PM by the time we finished. I went upstairs to get the dogs for their walk, and when I came down, I saw Little One Thee Cat run out on the wet cement, sink a good 3 or 4 inches, and run back off. I smoothed it OK.

Then there was thunder and all the cats seemed to disappear, so I went upstairs.

When The Wife got home,  I came down to show her the job and there were cat tracks and chicken tracks all over. We tried to smooth it with the board, and really messed things up. I called my finisher and asked him to come back over. He did and we smoothed it again, but this time it was very smooth and I was afraid it might be slippery when wet. He told me to brush it with a broom when it set a little more.

I went to the store and bought a street broom, and on my way out I saw Al run across, leaving deep tracks. When I got home there was more cat and chicken tracks across. The cement had set surprisingly fast and I was unable to brush the marks away. So, the finish is not what I had hoped.

Also, with the thunder came some rain, and the rain dripped off the side of the house in a concentrated area of the slab, so there’s pockmarks from that.

Overall, concrete man would probably call it atrocious, but it will work. It will be nice to have the cars under cover, out of the sun and rain. And, I used 3000 psi concrete and it is a very strong, heavy duty slab of concrete.

Below are several pictures of the whole process, start to finish.