For most of the last 5 years the front garden has been a store area for building materials. It has been dug up a couple of times for services, and has been an overgrown mess for the last year or so. Sorting it out had been the number one priority for the spring, but unfortunately covid 19 put paid to that idea not only by shutting the builders merchants, but also by flattening us. Now that building materials are available again, it is finally time to tackle this eyesore.
We had originally planned to have a metal railing fence with a formal garden behind. It turns out that this is about the most expensive way of fencing known to man. I counted the reclaimed bricks I had left over and realised that I didn't have enough for the big brick and flint wall I'd planned to build across the back of the car parking space, but that there was enough to build a low wall at the front. I sketched up a few designs, and keen observation of cottage walls in the area on a few recent bike rides led us to the final design.
Anyway, it was time to get out the spade and the pick axe. I had to soak the ground (I mean absolutely flood it) overnight before it was diggable at all the following day as it was baked solid:
I'm afraid there is no "before" photo of the concrete path, but here is the "after":
That was 8 inches thick in parts!
I also had to kango up the concrete in the splay of the drive, because that's where the corner of the wall will be:
I received a delivery of "quarry waste", which is unsorted flint above 50mm diameter:
That should make a lovely wall.
Final job before mixing concrete is the placement of level pegs. I threw the levels off the plinth of the house, and transferred them around the site with a straight edge and level. The peg location was marked with a dash of out of date plaster on the edge of the trench, and then we were ready for concrete:
A few hours later it was all done. It was all completely straight forward:
I've much more concreting to do all around the site, hence the 7 tonnes of ballast:
After washing up at the end of the day:
Bricklayers would start laying bricks tomorrow, but I'll let it set for a day at least, and will tackle the front path and other tasks tomorrow. I've also got to try to find a space to lay out all the bricks and mortar boards in quite a constrained site.