Visions.

I have a vision. Not some heat-induced hallucination, but rather something that I came up with months ago while sitting in the house watching the snowflakes fall. The vision had to do with a 'circle theme' in the barn. It started with the idea of building an attached silo. Then it seemed like a great idea to install a curving pathway of bricks in the floor that would guide you through the building. Then, I wanted to incorporate curves into other architectural details like an arched roof, curved walls and countertops, etc. Very cool indeed. However, now I actually have to build these things that I've concocted in my head, and each un-straight element is going to present a new challenge. The current (and possibly most difficult) one is the brick pathway. I started by pounding in some reference stakes and tracing out the pathway in the compacted sand layer that I worked so hard to create. After a few changes to the shape, it looked pretty good, so I started digging (again!). After all that time spent putting dirt into the barn, now I'm shoveling it back out. Don't ask. But only a small amount had to be removed to provide a thickened slab under where the brick pathway would follow. After removing about 3" of fill from this area, I compacted everything one more time and it was DONE.

With Lisa's help, a layer of poly was put over the entire area to provide the vapor barrier once the slab is poured. You can vaguely see the outline of the pathway under the plastic, and next I will have to build special forms to contain the pathway while the slab is poured....