How I took my patio to the next level ( Concrete patio with LED )

I'm gonna show you how I took my patio papers to the next level and if you ain't seen it already , be sure to check out my paper video .

If you want to make your own .

Let's do this in the last video , I finish off this space with Mulch .

I know that , that it was a temporary solution because it is at some point I need to dig up this area and I'd hate to waste the money on the artificial grass .

I plan to use in this location for now .

I feel the moat should do enough to hold me over until I'm ready while I was finishing that project .

I was bouncing a few ideas in my head on how to finish the gaps in between the pavers .

Originally , I was thinking grass , but I was really aiming for a low maintenance area .

So it boiled down to artificial grass or led s the mulch was playing a placeholder at least until I was able to sort this out .

First .

I have to undo what I did and get rid of the mulch before I get too far on this .

I wanna spend some time to clean up the papers and get them to a state that I like .

It would have been easier and faster to put a round edge on this during the finish stage of the concrete .

But I wanted these to have more of a modern look to it .

What I want to do here is slightly knock off the edge on the concrete .

One can look at it as add it work .

I'm gonna look at it as achieving the look I want in order to keep the dust down , I'm gonna switch over to wit grinding first , I'm gonna take a grinding cup wheel and then I'm gonna just glide over the top of this to knock any raised surface down the fatter .

I can get this the better it is for the polishing pads .

I'm not looking to polish this as smooth as the countertop .

I'm just looking to make it smooth once I'm done with the cup wheel , I'll switch over to the polishing dis .

I'm gonna go in as far as shift the grit and that's good enough for my liking here .

You can see how the cup will scuff up the surface of the concrete .

And here you can see where I'm trying to go with the diamond polishing pads .

I did see a few comments questioning why didn't I use a broom to put a texture on here ?

The simple response to this is it's not the effect that I was going for .

I've come to the conclusion that I wanted a smooth texture .

On top of this , I felt like the smoother .

It was the softer , it was on your feet .

You have to take my word for it .

But this is not a slippery surface by any mean .

I've walked on here while it was wet and dried with shoes and without I went over each pad until I got the best look , I felt I could achieve .

Overall , I'm quite happy with the end result .

Before I grind each lab , I noticed one thing .

It was extremely hard to remove dirt from the pores of the concrete since I've polished them .

I notice they don't get as dirty and they're much easier to clean .

Now , the next thing I would like to do is to apply a concrete sealer one with a dry look before I go any further .

I need to build up the space in between each paver to do that .

I'll be using sand .

Lastly , I need to compress the sand within the space .

I was able to find the right led strip for this application .

It's waterproof and dimmable , rated for indoor and outdoor projects and it's R GB .

So you'll be able to cycle through your favorite colors using the remote .

I'll place the link down in the video description if you want to check this out .

These come in a few different length , but I got the one that was 50 m .

I was able to cut off what I didn't need , which is perfect .

The biggest challenge here is you have to run this with 100 and 20 volts , but I'll show you what I did to make this work for me .

Let's get this thing on spoiled .

The first thing I need to do here is identify the location where I want my junction box to be set up .

Now , I'll take the lights and lace it in between the slabs .

I need to take this all the way around in between the slabs and bring it back to where it started on these lights .

You have a specific location that you can cut these so you have to pay attention to those .

Now , this means I may have a bit extra at my junction , but it's something I have to deal with at this point .

I'm gonna test it and make sure it's all working .

Adding the sand is gonna do a number of things here .

One , it's gonna help the light bounce off of the sand and basically bounce up with the sand built up in the spaces .

This allowed me to use the least amount of rocks so I can keep the cost down .

Placing the river rocks will be a bit tedious , but they'll help keep the strips pinned to the back of the slabs .

It's just a matter of starting in one location and work your way around .

Yeah .

Here I'm gonna use the PV C fence post to use as my junction per se .

I'll just cut off what I need as a disclaimer .

I'm gonna suggest you deal with a local electrician .

If you want to do something like this , this setup isn't meant to be tied into your house electric permanently .

It's mir so you can bring an extension cord to it or in my case , a power source on one side of the post , I need to drill two holes , one for each end of the led strip , one strip is just a cut off end and the other strip has a connector on it , which is the reason for the two different size holes on the front side .

I'm gonna drill two more holes , one at the top and one at the bottom .

This hole at the bottom is gonna be for a temporary power cord for now , this is how I'll be able to power the light strip soon .

I'll relocate all my backyard electric to one location and finally for the hole at the top , I'm out an outdoor electric box .

Now I'll route the wire into the electric box and tighten it .

Now I'll take the led controller cut the power end off , strip the wires and tie it into the electric box that I have here .

One thing I know is moisture will find its way inside this post , but that's something I have to deal with .

I've been experimenting with the controller wrap with a piece of cloth , some moisture absorber and covered with a piece of plastic .

So far , it's been keeping all the moisture out and it's looking pretty good .

Once I have all my connection inside the box , it's time to wire this up just like a regular outlet .

I'm gonna use the power cord at the bottom as a power source .

When I bring an extension cord to it , then I'll make up the splices in this box and also add an outlet here for taking up the port on the extension cord .

The biggest challenge with making this rope light work outside is finding a place to put the controller .

It's a good thing that the controller that I'm using is radio frequency .

This mean I don't have to have line of sight using infrared to operate the lights at this point .

I know exactly where I want to plant the post .

All I need to do is cut the landscape fabric , remove the dirt , plant the post and put it all back .

Now I need to direct both ends of the light strip inside the post .

I put some sand on the inside of the post .

This way I can look clean when I'm peeping in there for the cut in of the light strip , I'll slip the included cap on .

Now , I'll be able to plug this power cord in to an extension cord or a power source and that would give me some additional power here .

Now I'll seal up the junction box , using silicone going around the entire box .

This is gonna prevent rainwater from getting inside , but it's not gonna stop if I have a flood here .

And with all my years here , I haven't had any issues with flooding .

That's part of the risk I'm willing to take .

And finally I'll hit this with some spray paint to make it blend in into the landscape .

And one thing to notice that I'm testing the lights out and you can see how bright they are even during the day off to the right , you can see this big bright power source and that's before I install the junction box .

Yep , I was been impatient and wanted to see this thing in action before I made all those connections .

The lights are quite bright and it does exactly what I was imagining before I did this .

It doesn't always work out that way .

But in this case , I dig it right now , I'm pretty much doing a patchwork to make all my lights work in the backyard .

But I wanna make this extremely convenient so I can go to one location and flip a switch when I complete that project .

I'll be sure to share it with you so you can see my solution .