I'm one of the volunteers working on the restoration of an offgrid 1906 light station near Anacortes, WA. We have a lot of concrete repairs to do, from stabilizing the ladder and landing, to restoring the crumbling sidewalks that once connected the massive Victorian Keepers' Quarters to the Lighthouse itself. I'm posting here to introduce myself and ******. Here's a photo to give you an idea of what we are messing around with now:[ATTACH]58549[/ATTACH] The ladder rungs embedded in the concrete face need replacing. Cracks in the big concrete pour (the Knuckle) need repairs. Chunks missing from the bottom of the knuckle should be filled. And then there's that whole derric up above. That needs some concrete work done, too. Fun stuff, huh? I hope I can do some brainstorming with the folks here. Thanks, Kitty

Hi, I have a large tree in the front yard. We sheet mulched a lot of the area; then we went back and removed the grass from the area around the tree. Now we want to put in a sitting area. Not quite a patio. Maybe a couple benches away from the crowning of the tree roots (bottom left of pic below). We're well inside the drip line, but I still don't want to have a highly compacted material in place (no pavers, etc.). I've seen some sites recommend decomposed granite (DG), some with a 2-3" layer of road base and then DG, and some with just a gravel fill. First priority is to avoid damaging the tree, so adequate drainage (i.e. low compaction) is important. Putting up a deck is not something we want. Any thoughts / suggestions? I'm in Sacramento, should that make a difference. Thanks, michael [ATTACH]58893[/ATTACH]