Not 1, 2, 3, or 4 Times...

...but FIVE. We had to go over the driveway with pack and the plate compactor 5 times.

When we worked on laying the pack in the backyard portion of the patio we had to go over it 3 times. We were hoping for only 2, but we went the safe route and did some touch ups here and there to make things nice and even.

We figured we might have to go over the driveway pack 4 times (because we'd dug out and extra 2 inches to accommodate a car sitting on top of it), but we were really shooting for 3. What a pipe dream.

Last Wednesday after we got all the dirt dug out...

...and even the first layer of pack in...

...Chris got really excited at about 3:45 or 4 o'clock to go to HD and rent a plate compactor and get all the layers done that day. Exhausted, I put the kibosh on those plans and made us wait until this weekend.

Saturday morning rolled around and Chris' dad and cousin were to arrive at about 1 o'clock (Chris' cousin comes to stay with us for a weekend every 3-4 months and his dad always drops him off). We figured if we got the plate compactor home at 9 we could get all the work done by about 12 or 12:30 because the other layers in the back never took too long to compact and we were dealing with much less sq. ft. So off we went on our plate compacting adventure!

Our plans were first thwarted when we had to spend nearly 45 minutes at HD just waiting to get the plate compactor rented. There was a ginormous line, and in typical HD fashion no employee is in any sort of hurry to serve waiting customers.

When we finally got home we got the plate compactor out and started making the rounds

Then it was time for the second layer


And then round three

And then our plans were dashed again: each layer was going on way thinner than we thought - we were using new pack from another place so we didn't know if it was compacting more or what - but it was making a lot more work. And then, Chris' dad and cousin pulled up an hour earlier than we had expected. Doh. His dad was going to be leaving for the afternoon to visit some family in SF and then return in the evening to watch the USC football game, so we figured in the meantime we'd put Sean to work

We laid the 2x4 down across the driveway to see about how much more pack we'd need in certain places for that 4th layer. And after we laid all the pack out, ran over it again with the place compactor, we were still way too deep in many places :( and out of pack :(

So while Chris and Sean went to the local landscape yard to get more pack I brought out the marking spray paint and measured all over the place about how much pack we'd need to get the driveway to the correct height (minus and plus signs in front of numbers meant either a little under or over that amount)

Once the boys came back with the pack we shoveled it out all over the place and tried to follow the markings to make the driveway level and pitch correct (it pitched both towards the street and towards our neighbor).

After the 5th go round we figured it was close enough

You can tell there are some dips and lumps here and there

But we really worked hard to get the slope to the street correct

There were still some areas that needed improvement, but by this time it was about 3:30 (so much for getting it done around noon...thank goodness we didn't rent it Wednesday afternoon/evening) and we'd gone over it 5 times and we were out of pack again, so we just said screw it, it's good enough.