Sunday 30 September 2012

The Epic Garden Project

The Epic Garden Project


So after several years of having a garden I was less than proud of, the missus and I decided that it was time for drastic measures. The main point being that the grass had to go and we needed a useable space for entertaining purposes. At the time our decking was occupied by a since gone hot-tub (a sad day that was) and therefore we needed the space. We were told that a friend of the missus' mother had loads of old railway sleepers going for next to nothing so I saw this as the excuse to get going. Off we went to his place and came back with several of them. All I can say is that these things were heavy and a bugger to lug around the side of the house. 
Bye bye old friend

The Removal

The biggest task in the whole escapade was the removal of the grass in the garden. This took absolutely ages and destroyed my already ageing back. Several long evenings of dig, lift, shift, dump resulted in what can only be described as a grassy knoll fit for a sniper. Several runs to the skip and a very dirty car later and it was all gone. Next we had to level the entire garden out so that we could get all of the useful bits and pieces sitting nicely and in the right place.
It took a long time to get here

The Laying


After getting all of the ground levelled we had to install the sleepers which was quite possibly the easiest part of the whole job. Because they were so heavy, once they were in place, they weren't going anywhere. After that the ground-sheet had to be put down followed by the sandy base layer. Again a bit more levelling was required and then the slabs could be put in place followed by the gravel edging. Once everything was down and looked like it was in the right place, I grouted all of the edges to finish it all off and celebrated in the fact that it was all over.







The finished article 

All in all the project took about 2 weeks to complete as we were doing it in our spare time each evening. All I can say is I am more than happy with the finished article and glad to have a garden that I am proud of. This project pretty much inspired the rest of them due to the use of the old sleepers. They bloomin brilliant and have so much character about them. If I could have them in my house I would!





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