Category: garden (Page 5 of 6)

External lights

February 4, 2014 / stephen

While we have been sorting out the small wall at the front of the property, we are also sorting out the uplighters that will light up the front wall at night. This has been a little more involved that I first imagined.

There seems little point in shining light onto the wall directly underneath a window – it isn’t going to show any texture on the wall and it is only going to shine light inside. So we have decided to place the lights evenly under the parts of the wall without windows. I think this should work, but I am worried that the lights are not evenly spaced.

The next concern was how far do the uplighters have to be from the wall to illuminate the wall. This obviously depends on a number of factors – type of light, type of lamp, distance between the wall and the lamp etc. The only really way of finding out what it might look like is to try it! With that in mind, we put a plug on one of the lights and experimented with how far away it should be from the wall.

This shows the effect of one external light positioned about 50cms from the base of the way. This is using a 5W LED lamp with a 45 degree spread. We will position 5 lights along this wall to show up the texture of the stone. We are using Robus uplighters.

Front wall

February 1, 2014 / stephen

Now most of the building work is finished, we are turning our attention to the outside spaces.

We have decided to build a small wall at the front of the property. While this will provide space for pot plants etc, it also finds a use for some of the left over reclaimed stone that we have acquired during the build. Much of this stone will have been on site since the property was first built, so it is good to see it being “recycled”.

The weather has been very wet this week, so progress has been slower than we would have liked. However, this should be finished by next week.

With the outside work nearing completion, we are attempting to finish off some of the outside elements. This is the front wall at the front of the property. Unfortunately, the weather has not been very kind to us this week!

Spring has arrived early

January 16, 2014 / stephen

It has been very mild (and wet) over the past month or so.

The result? Some of the plants think that it is spring already!

Spring seems to have arrived early this year. Jo planted this last year after we had finished this section of dry stone wall.

Progress on the extension

December 6, 2013 / stephen

We have taken down the scaffolding at the front of the extension. This will allow the bi-folding doors to be fitted. This is planned for first thing tomorrow morning.

The sunken garden could also do with a bit of a tidy-up!

We have taken down the scaffolding at the front of the extension. Two sets of bi-folding doors are due to be installed tomorrow morning.

The sunken garden needs a bit of tidying up and the garden wall needs finishing off, but it is starting to take shape.

Upper terrace wall

November 26, 2013 / stephen

I have just about finished the wall in the upper terrace in the sunken garden. There are just the coping stones to go on. These are being produced in a local quarry and with any luck should arrive this week. It will be good to get this wall finished. I still have the lower wall to complete and there is probably 2-3 days left on it before the coping stones can go on that too.

With the weather closing in, it will be good to get on with the next task (insulating the rafters in the extension) which is an indoor job!

Despite some pretty wet and muddy conditions, the upper terrace wall is now ready for coping stones.

Walls in the sunken garden

November 25, 2013 / stephen

We are making good progress on the walls in the sunken garden. There are terraces on two different levels, so there are plenty of walls here. The walls are built using reclaimed stone that we purchased. It is relatively flat and uniform so it makes pretty good walling stone.

We have almost finished the wall on the upper terrace. The coping stones are due to be delivered later this week, so it won’t be long before we get to see what the finished wall will look like.

The top wall in the sunken garden is directly outside the master bedroom. This will be the view through the bi-folding doors (once they are fitted).

The top wall in the sunken garden is nearing completion. We are expecting the coping stones sometime this week, so it will be good to see them go on.

It was cold and wet and I was doing the best I could to put a brave face on the situation! In the other photos, I looked like Benny Hill!

Courtyard garden wall

October 5, 2013 / stephen

The weather was ok today with no rain, so we spent the whole day on the wall in the courtyard garden. We have now got the end wall above the level of the blockwork for the reatining wall. The wall will need to come up a little further, but it will do for now. We are now starting to work on the wall that will adjoin the timber steps that lead to the upper terrace.

We spent most of the day today building the wall in the courtyard. We are making the most of the fine weather, after all, it isn’t going to be last much longer. We are now about to turn the corner where the timber steps will be built.

The end wall is now up to the same level (and in some place, above) the retaining blockwork. We have used 3 one tonne bags of 3.5 inch stones and one bag of “jumpers” (the bigger 6 inch stones).

We are sorting out the reclaimed stone as we build the wall. The stones are sorted into groups according to their height. All of these stones are 8cms high.

Progress in the courtyard garden

October 3, 2013 / stephen

I have been busy on other things this week and not had a lot of time to work on the wall in the courtyard. However, I did get a couple of hours on it today, in between showers. Unfortunately, I have had to cover today’s work with hessian to prevent rain running down the front of the stones and washing the cement out.

Today’s work is covered in hessian to protect it from the rain. With the weather, we only got a couple of hours to work on it today.

Courtyard garden

September 30, 2013 / stephen

We have made some good progress on the reclaimed stone wall in the courtyard. We have being making the best of the recent fine weather – it is October next week and I can’t believe that this good weather is going to last.

There is still a lot to do!

We have spent a bit of time on the wall in the garden this weekend. It was really only two half days, but we made some good progress.

Reclaimed stone wall – revisited

September 27, 2013 / stephen

When I looked at the photographs of yesterday’s work on the reclaimed stone wall, I realised that it wasn’t great – the courses were just to muddled up.

There was no alternative other than to take it apart and redo it. The sand and cement that I used to backbed the stones was still soft, so it didn’t take long to take it apart – just a quick tap with a hammer does the trick. If I hadn’t rebuilt it, it would have bugged me for years. It seemed a worthwhile investment of an hour or so to rebuilt that part.

The reason for the poorly built wall? A sprained ankle. I fell over the previous evening coming out of the pub (not because of too much beer, but a pothole in the road – honest!) and sprained my ankle. The next day I was hobbling around. This meant that I didn’t stand back and look at the wall frequently enough while I was building it. I only looked at it at the end of the day and probably only looked at it properly until I photographed it. Then it was too late.

Looking at today’s photos, I am much happy. It looks much better – not perfect, but better.

All in all, three days work – including an hour or so to redo half a dozen courses that I wasn’t happy with.

Well, I looked at the photographs from yesterday and I really didn’t like the part of the wall to camera right. There was no alternative but to take it down and redo it. It took an hour to take it down and rebuild it.