One Room Challenge: Spring 2022 Week 5

ORC Spring 2022
Written By Jeannie

Hello and welcome to the blog! We are in Week 5 of the One Room Challenge and the focus this week was the atrium.

I started by clearing out the space as much as possible. We had a SUPER heavy fountain that I was hoping to keep and reuse, but I needed to move it out of the way, and my husband and I realized that we would not be able to move it back. So we ended up smashing it into pieces to dispose of it. Once everything was moved from the atrium, I leveled the dirt and cleaned the screens and side of the house. Here’s a reminder of what the atrium looked like before and where we are now.

Garden beds

Vego 9-in-1 garden beds

Once everything was clean and prepared, I started putting together the two Vego garden beds I purchased. These garden beds are so cool. I bought the 9-in-1 configuration, which allows you to customize the garden bed size to fit whatever space you have. I decided to make one of my garden beds 2 Ft x 8 Ft and the other 2 Ft x 6.5 Ft. It took me a couple of hours to put together both garden beds. I love the olive green color; I think it’s perfect for a garden. I’m happy with my decision to buy these garden beds instead of building my own. It would have cost me more money to build long-lasting cedar garden beds than purchasing these, which saved time, so it’s a win-win! We plan to plant vegetables in the garden beds, but we need to wait until Fall to plant most of the vegetables we want. So, for now, we will just plant a few things that might do well in our Summer heat.


Making “flagstone” pavers

After the garden beds were put together, I shifted my focus to making pavers for the current dirt pit in the atrium. Yes, I am going to make my pavers! I really wanted the look of flagstone pavers with ground cover growing between them, but I didn’t have it in my budget to buy actual flagstone. So after some research, I found these molds on Etsy to make “flagstone” pavers out of concrete.

Supplies used:

Supplies for making “flagstone” pavers out of concrete

How to:

Step 1: Clean the molds with dish soap and water, then dry the molds with paper towels.

  • Make sure to clean the molds after each use.

Step 2: Oil the molds to be easier to remove from the concrete later

  • I used motor oil, and it worked great! I’ve seen others use cooking oil as well, which works too.

Step 3: Weigh out cement dye and mix with a small amount of water in a 5-gallon bucket.

  • I made my pavers slightly different shades. I used 2.5oz per 50/60lb bag of concrete mix or 5oz per bag of 50/60lb bag of concrete mix. I like the look of the darker pavers best; if I were to do this again, I would make all the pavers with 5oz of cement color per bag of concrete mix.

Step 4: Mix concrete with dye/water mixture using the drill and mixing paddle. Add more water as needed.

  • I added a small amount of concrete mix to the 5-gallon bucket at a time, which made it easier to ensure everything was mixed evenly. I found that having a watery consistency to the concrete mix made pavers with fewer air bubbles.

Step 5. Fill molds halfway with concrete, then shake the mold to remove air bubbles.

  • Shake them more than you would think you need to!

Step 6. Fill molds to the top with concrete and shake again.

  • Keep shaking!

Step 7: Let the concrete dry for 24 hours, then remove it from the mold.

  • The pavers made with Quikrete fast-setting concrete mix can be removed about 12 hours after pouring if you are careful. The concrete mix that is not fast-setting will definitely need 24 hours to set.

One set of pavers made with 50lb bag of concrete and 5oz of cement color. Color will lighten a little as the pavers fully cure.

And just like that, you have “flagstone” pavers made of concrete! I made 7 sets of pavers total (5 sets in the fast-setting and 2 in the regular mix). To make one set of pavers using the molds, you will need 60lbs of concrete mix, but I preferred using the fast setting mix, which only came in 50lb bags. If you are using 50lbs bags, you will only have enough concrete to fill 5 of the 6 molds, so keep that in mind.

Making the pavers was about a week-long process, making one set every day. It was a messy process but definitely worth it. I have not set up the pavers yet; I have a few other things to work on first, but stay tuned to see how they look all laid out! If you want to know what I’m working on in real-time, follow me on Instagram. And if you want to see a ton more DIY projects, check out the ORC blog!

Missed a week? Catch up on my ORC progress.

Week 1 / Week 2 / Week 3 / Week 5 / Week 6 / Week 7 / Week 8

Jeannie
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One Room Challenge: Spring 2022 Week 6
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One Room Challenge: Spring 2022 Week 3