First-time house renovation

stolt

andrew-b wrote: »

If your laying setts see
http://pavingexpert.com/setts01.htm
..if you follow the links at the bottom under "other resources" says how to lay it - either rigid or flexible.

cheers, looking at it now.... would you lay a sub base for a play bark area, or just sharp sand it and then weed membrane then bark!

andrew-b

I'd probably just lay the weed membrane direct on the soil with bark on top..doesn't really need to be more substantial than that. Again, see http://pavingexpert.com/bark01.htm

ukmaggie45

andrew-b wrote: »

On Saturday i spent ages trying to take the old garden table apart..all the fixings were so rusted and were beyond even drilling out . I did actually try to cut the glass top in half but being toughened it's impossible so i'm paying the council £7 to take it away as it won't fit in our car.

Gosh Andy, I feel shattered just reading about all the work you've done! :T Have you thought of freecycling the garden table? I bet you there would be a gardener or allotmenteer who would be very glad of the toughened glass to make a cold frame.

andrew-b

Hi Maggie,

Hows the house coming on?

The garden table was a secondhand freebie already so it's had a fair innings. Quite glad it was raining here earlier as the ground is now too wet to be digging it (well that's my excuse for now anyway!). Expect Stolt is in a right muddy mess if his out in his "quagmire"!

I was grovelling around outside in the rain earlier moving the glass top out the front ready for collection - bit of a dicey moment when i was crouched down trying to rotate it upright and wasn't sure i could hold it above me...had visions of it coming crashing down ontop of me so was muttering "must not drop, must not drop" and a few other expletives!! Really should have got up earlier and got OH to move it for me before she got ready for work. Council just called to say they are collecting it Thursday so i could have left it until tomorrow for OH to move anyway..doh!
.
Not sure table top would have been much good for a cold frame with the parasol hole in the middle and it's quite thick patterned glass. TBH i just want rid before it ends up in millions of fragments (did consider whacking it hard with sledgehammer but didn't fancy having glass embedded in me!!)

Incidentally, I built a cold frame for my parents years ago from some secondary double glazing panels and old wooden panelling ripped out of their kitchen which they've used every year since (must be over 15 years old now so i'm surprised it hasn't rotted yet)- simply screws together at the corners for storage when not in use.

Might go out later and make a start on ripping out the shelving from the old shed as hoping to do a couple of tip runs tomorrow morning if it's not too wet.

andrew-b

Went out to start removing some of the paving where the new shed will be as i've come up with a plan to minimise the waste. Plan now is to remove the slabs embedded in the concrete and break up the concrete beneath (seems quite soft fortunately and just needs a whack with club hammer and breaking out with wrecking bar) which gets around drainage issues, allows me to level it up properly, and then means i can use ecobase for the base plus also will reduce the size of step into shed. Not the cheapest solution but will make things a whole lot simpler than laying bricks. Means only the top inch needs to be disposed of and i can use all the broken concrete. Anyway it started raining so i carried on for a little while before taking shelter in the shed and had a bit of a sort out while in there. Only managed to clear 2x 18inch square slabs so might go out again now i've dried off..expect i'll get wet for the 3rd time today!

ukmaggie45

Hi All! Sorry not updated for a while but not much going on really.

andrew-b wrote: »

Hows the house coming on?

TomsMom wrote: »

Maggie You're very quiet - what you up to duck?

We met with the builder again, and John went round the house with him including up into the loft. Last Thursday he dropped off a proposed schedule of work for the renovation part of the job. There's one or two changes we want to make, but we haven't had time or energy to get back in touch with him yet. We're considering using heated skirting board instead of radiators, still looking into that.

Plan Man also came round on Thursday to measure up, and he called back on Sunday to double check some measurements too.

Been doing lots in the garden. Every day we go there I spend at least 20 minutes raking moss out of the lawn. Hopefully I'll manage to get the whole lawn done before next winter! Elephant garlic in veg plot is just showing, and the garlic in containers is growing too. Still got more to go in (I know it's too late really, but if it doesn't split into cloves you can re-plant in the autumn) along with peas, broad beans, sweet peas, onions, shallots and far to many seed potatoes.

John has started levelling the site for the new shed, not sure when he'll get the base done, as the forecast looks wet for the foreseeable future. Oh well, if it's not ready in time it'll just be another four weeks before they deliver round here again.

Got lots more seeds to go in, but with everything so cold and wet I'm not rushing at it. Got free seeds from BBC Dig In and RHS Veg Pledge, but also have about a ton I ordered back in November!

So house isn't progressing much right now, though it's good to know the asbestos tiles are out. Plan Man will prob see us later this week, and then we'll get to see what our options may be.

We bought a shredder as we've taken so much vegetation out of the far and of the garden. Here's the garden as it was on 12 Dec, the day after we completed.



And here's what it looked like on Sunday evening.



The shed's going at the far right hand end of the garden, it's door will open onto the perimeter path.

TM, so glad that TD is continuing to improve. Fingers crossed the consultant will agree to only 2 weekly visits.

stolt

wow ukmaggie, love looking at the before and after pics, you really have been hard at work. garden is looking good.
Today has been a complete washout for me, rain like ive never seen before at one stage i was joking that we had a pool in the garden, the trugs i left out have at least two inches of rain in them. So rather than waste the day, i changed some of the sockets and switches over to some super slim ones. I plan to start the garden again tomorrow, hired the wacker plate and mixer last friday and havent used them yet, waste of money!!!!! Found a large spider in the bath last night, must have been the rain which drove him up the waste pipe, but scared the life out of my saw these legs appearing from the bath plug and then this big brown thing appears and just sits there watching me brush my teeth!

stolt

nearly forgot to ask, I want to get some gabions to create a l-shaped raised flower bed,, this sort of thing. anyone see a place that sells them, i want about 30m deep and about 40m high.
http://www.pavingexpert.com/featur04.htm#gab

andrew-b

Not seen them anywhere maggie though haven't really looked for them...though i was up fairly late last night reading that website and there is a supplier page: http://www.pavingexpert.com/links09.htm which is probably a good starting place.

Stolt, looks like a garden spider....probably annoyed you've dug his garden up!

Managed to get another 2 of the slabs out whole and removed concrete underneath before twilight so thats about 9 square feet out of 54 done ..taking a while as i'm breaking up whatever i find underneath to form a finer sub-base. Think it's the right decision as some of it sounds quite hollow. Icy cold as the wind has got really strong. Tied all the new garden furniture together so they don't get broken before we've even sat on them.

ukmaggie45

stolt wrote: »

nearly forgot to ask, I want to get some gabions to create a l-shaped raised flower bed

Hey Stolt, what are you thinking of filling them with? I've seen a picture of gabions filled with rows of wine bottles - looked very attractive. Guess you might be able to get free bottles from local restaurants if you needed more bottles than you could drink in the timescale you're working to! :beer:

Looking at your garden though, are you sure you might not be better just digging a swimming pool? :eek: Fingers crossed for some dry weather over the weekend, though forecast is mainly carp so far as I can see.

(PS any chance you could make the huge photos a bit smaller? Just they make the posts difficult to read as you have to scroll sideways to read each line.)