screen porch floor

our carport-turned-screen porch is complete!
right after the construction finished i painted the floor with chalk paint, and it was an improvement but having lived with the space for a while now, we still wanted to add concrete pavers. partly to make a warmer, cozier floor but also to fill a gap left between the foundation and the walls of the porch (can't put the wood directly on the concrete for moisture concerns). we were getting wayyyy too many bugs in what is supposed to be our bug-free outdoor oasis.

old carport floor - before chalk paint and after chalk paint

so a couple of weeks ago i bought 400 pavers from home depot, laid them out with some help from my good friend anne (thanks anne!) and phil cut the odd pieces for corners and edges...then i spent about a day pouring and sweeping polymeric sand into the joints, cleaning the concrete surfaces and and spritzing with water until the sand was saturated. it took about a week for the sand to dry and harden fully in this humid weather, but we started walking on it right away. no harm done.

wetting the polymeric sand - did this about 10 times at 10 minute intervals

tada! diy paver floor

diy paver floor overlay

rustic floor with pavers

so yes that's right.
we laid pavers DIRECTLY on the old concrete foundation of the carport. i couldn't see how a sand bed would work since our screen porch is on floor level already, and it all just sounded like way more work than necessary. the concrete's been there since '55, and now it's covered with a couple inches more of concrete - not sure what moisture problems that could create since the whole thing is porous. guess we'll find out! in the meantime it was cheap, easy and looks sooooo much cozier than that old slab.