A very long weekend

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Hey ho everyone ….

When i last seriously blogged it was the end of last year and this was how the garden ended up after 5/6 months work.

Well, i did say that there was more to do but i didn’t quite know what.

Well, the most important thing that had to be done to keep OH happy was to try and make the bungalow end a bit more user friendly so a patio was the first thing to come to mind.

So i started about taking up the old rotten decking …. with a little help of course ….. notice the “I’m having my photo taken stance” ….!!!!!

Then when all the rubbish was cleared to the other end of the garden i set about getting ready to make my creation.

This was the first delivery of materials….

4 x pallets of slabs – 30 slabs per pallet
2 x ag bags of scalpings for footings
2 x ag bags of sharp sand for the base
10 × 25kg bags of cement

Did you know that you can get cement in waterproof bags these days…?

And this was where everything had to be moved from the front of the house to the back.

So now i set about laying the first few slabs. Always a worry about where to start, how to get your levels right and where to end up.

We have a drain cover near the back gate ….

…. so this had to form the basis of the level for the rest of the patio.

I didn’t want to start at the drain end so i checked the levels all the way across and started by the back door with the corner of the bungalow.

Having laid patios before i knew that i didn’t want to end up making loads of cuts to fill in so the plan was to lay to a full slab at the edges and infill with shingle to about 6" and create a border up the left hand side …. theory….!!!!!!

After creating a base with scalpings and mixing my first load of cement in my brand new mixer – (cost £250 off of ebay …. much cheaper than hiring everytime i needed to mix cement) – i laid my first few slabs.

The cement mix i used was half a shovel of cement to 5 shovels of sharp sand …. mixed in the tub for about 5 minutes and then a small amount of water added to just to make it damp and manageable.

The mixer took 15 shovels of sand which fortunately was just about a barrow load when it went in and came out.

This is called a dry mix as apposed to a wet sloppy mix for laying bricks.

As the cement drys out under the slabs it sucks the slab down firmly and makes a solid connection. The idea being that the slabs don’t move once laid.

… and some more

… and some more

Unfortunately, i had started laying late in the day on Friday and the clocks didn’t go forward until Saturday so this was all i got done on the first day.

Day 2 …..

Day 3 …..

Day 4 ….

… and that is as far as i got this last weekend.

I’m amazed …. no back ache …. no sore knees …. no naggging from OH ….

We have just ordered the next load of materials which are ..

half x pallett of decoaritve bricks for use as low walling

1 x pallet of block paviers for edging and path edging up the garden

80 x slate blocks to form a surround for the front garden

2 x pallets of paving slabs to finish the patio off – hopefully.

My next time off long enough to get any work done is going to be the Easter break approx 12 days so hopefully there will be more blog to come then.

In the meantime … back to the grind in the office … no sun … no fresh air …

catch you all later

• 30 Mar, 2011
• 9 likes

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