Concrete

I didn’t wake up wanting a driveway project.

I woke up wanting my driveway to stop doing the “shallow pond” thing right in front of the garage.

It’s a very specific kind of annoyance:

• you step over it for months,
• you tell yourself it’s “fine,”
• and then one day you watch water sit there for three hours and your brain goes, oh… this is going to be a real problem later.

So I did what I always do when I’m about to spend money: I opened Notes and started writing down every sentence that sounded expensive.

I didn’t plan on caring about my garage floor.

Then I cleaned the garage (for real, like “everything out, vacuum the corners, find the 2019 receipt pile” cleaned) and realized the slab is… not great. Oil spots. Little spider cracks. A couple of pitted patches that look like the concrete got bored and started flaking itself.

So I started doing the normal person thing: Googling “garage epoxy cost.”

And then I did the homeowner thing: I called a few people, got a few quotes, and discovered that “epoxy” is sometimes a product and sometimes just a vibe.

I have a note on my phone called “PATIO (CONCRETE?)” and it’s mostly me writing the same sentence over and over:

“Why are these numbers so different.”

A concrete patio is deceptively simple. It’s a flat rectangle that you walk on.

And yet quotes will come back like:

• Contractor A: $4,800
• Contractor B: $11,900
• Contractor C: $19,400

…and they’ll all be for “a concrete patio.”

This post is me trying to make that sentence stop lying.