All 39 entries tagged New House

Before and after

Follow-up to Monday night work out from Kieran's blog

Well, we're off on holiday to Tenerife in 12 hours time and the garden is not quite finished. It is mighty close though:

Since I lasted posted some pictures we've done:

• Finished off the gravel (all 2 tonnes of it)
• Laid a path around the circular lawn
• Level off that lawn because it was really uneven (so now looking a bit dead)
• Planted a hell of a lot of plants in the borders
• Made up around a dozen pots for the patio
• Started putting in 17 lights (downlighters, lanterns and spots)

We even enjoyed the first BBQ on it the other night, so it is really starting to feel like we can enjoy it.

Garden make over gallery

: 11 Jul 2005 19:22 |  Tags: New House |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Monday night work out

Follow-up to More weekend gardening from Kieran's blog

It's amazing how things have really come together over the last few days. We've now got about 1.25 tonnes of gravel down on the left hand side of the garden and with a bit of luck I'll get the rest down on the right hand side tomorrow. It feels so close now. Unfortunately there is still the path to go all the way around the garden, which is yet another 60 slabs.

: 27 Jun 2005 23:05 |  Tags: New House |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

More weekend gardening

Follow-up to Patio is down! from Kieran's blog

Two more days work on the garden this weekend. First task on Saturday was to buy a shed load of plants and start getting them into the rockery and wall.
With Steph's mum helping out, we bought 50 plants and she and Steph got 30 of them planted that day…

Second job of the weekend was to get more digging done and get the top semi-circular patio laid. With Barry's help on Sunday, we flew through it and got it down in a matter of hours.

What isn't shown is a whole load more digging, meaning that yet again we've filling another bloody skip :(

It is feeling good though, it's really taking shape now :)

: 26 Jun 2005 21:42 |  Tags: New House |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Patio is down!

Follow-up to Finished dry laying the patio from Kieran's blog

So, after huge amounts of prep work, we finally got down to actually laying the patio on Sunday. The plan was that we'd have Saturday off and we'd lay the patio on Sunday because it was meant to be a bit cooler…how wrong were we (or rather the Met. Office).

Starting at about 10:00 and finishing at 20:00, it was a tough 10 hours in the sun…but we did it. As usual, Barry and Steph's Dad came over to help out and with one person using the cement mixer and two of us actually laying slabs, we managed to get it all done. I'm fairly happy with the finish, but some of the gaps between the slabs are uneven because the damn things are uneven sizes…but once the gaps are pointed, you shouldn't notice.

Numbers for the day:

• 1: Number of painters/cooks/bar-women :)
• 2: Number of dogs getting in the way
• 3: Number of workmen
• 5: Bags of cement
• 10: Hours in the sunshine
• 20–30: Number of cans of Pepsi and bottles of beer drunk
• 35: Bags of sand used for cement
• 130: Number of slabs laid

: 20 Jun 2005 09:39 |  Tags: New House |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Finished dry laying the patio

Follow-up to More and more digging from Kieran's blog

I've not had a chance to do much work on the garden after work this week as I've been busy. However, this evening I managed to dry lay the rest of the patio to see if it fits…and it does!

Now I need to lift all those slabs up again and re-compact down the sand with a compactor I need to hire this weekend. Then, this weekend I'll get a cement mixer and start properly laying the patio…yay!

: 16 Jun 2005 22:08 |  Tags: New House |  Comments (8) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

More and more digging

Follow-up to Hi ho, hi ho…it's off to work I go from Kieran's blog

It's been a tough weekend of digging, but things are progressing nicely.

• Taken delivery of my supplies
• Filled a skip and covered the driveway with dirt too…new skip arriving on Wednesday. It's going to be a nightmare refilling the new skip from all the crap on the driveway :(
• Completed the circular lawn
• Finished digging out patio area (more than planned because the whole garden slopes towards the house, but the patio has to slope away from the house)
• Filled in 2–3 inches of sand into patio area (1.5 tons)
• Dry laid the stone circle as a test
• Finished painting left and right fences

: 12 Jun 2005 22:25 |  Tags: New House |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Hi ho, hi ho…it's off to work I go

Follow-up to A hard days work from Kieran's blog

…with a bucket and spade…

Beautiful day today, so we got quite a bit done (even if it was just in the afternoon again…just too lazy for this morning lark!).

The lawn is shaping up nicely and the wall on the left hand side is looking much tidier. As you can see, there is actually very little turf left (a good thing) and lots and lots of mud which will shortly be covered with patio and gravel. We'll get the stone on order this week and hopefully we can actually start laying some patio next weekend.

: 05 Jun 2005 22:06 |  Tags: New House |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

A hard days work

Follow-up to Garden work begins from Kieran's blog

Worked hard today (well, this afternoon, the morning was taken up with a hangover) in the garden and got quite a lot done with the help of my two new turf cutting machines, one from HSS and Barry.

We've got a lot more earth to dig up, but about 70% of the turf is up now and either rolled up for Steve's garden or in the skip.

If it doesn't rain tomorrow I should be able to get the earth down to the right level for the patio…but my god it's going to be a lot of trips with the barrow to the skip :(

: 05 Jun 2005 00:27 |  Tags: New House |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

My new kitchen needs this

Writing about web page http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1823227,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0000532

ExtremeTech.com has an interesting article that I've just got to try out.

I'd been hoping to put a computer in my new kitchen, but time/expense/space stopped me doing it. However, seeing this article has really re-inspired me. Here are some of their ideas:

• Internet access in the kitchen, obvious but handy
• Music in your kitchen
• Recipe reference
• Bar code ready for keeping track of food stocks
• Downward projector to project screen onto worktop!

Obviously I'm not going to do all of these, but I do have a spare old computer lying around which I could use. Unfortunately I'd need a new LCD (black) to mount in a unit, but I think I've got space :)

So much for the garden being my last project!

: 03 Jun 2005 20:16 |  Tags: New House |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Garden work begins

Follow-up to New project: The garden from Kieran's blog

Last weekend and this weekend we got up the new fencing. We could do the left and right hand sides, but not the back unfortunately.

Then today we started digging up the old rockery on the left hand side which was overgrown with grass. We also started painting the fence (yes it'll be blue…we know what we're doing, honest).

This week we'll hire a turf cutter to get up the 40–50m² of turf that'll be replaced with borders/patio/gravel. Then hopefully we can start laying some patio next weekend.

: 31 May 2005 01:26 |  Tags: New House |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem