First I didn’t order enough gravel for the ground floor and then I ordered too much. To find a home for it we decided to build a footing for our front patio wall. Digging was the worst part as the ground here is 3′ higher than it should be due to ground floor excavation. With the forms laid we added maybe 5″ of gravel onto which we’ll add 4 – 5″ of concrete with rebar. This is a fun project (and not high priority), but having these footings ready will be useful for when we have the concrete pour as if there is any excess concrete it can be dumped in here. It doesn’t matter that the forms aren’t perfectly straight as this concrete footing will be just below the surface.
The wall won’t be very high at all, maybe six inches max and on top of it we will use local bluestone which we’ve been collecting over the last couple of years. Not sure whether we will go with rectangular or irregular stones (see sample images), it will probably depend on what we have.
Our vision for this patio is to have a nice shaded area to sit out on with a selection of plants in large terracotta planters etc. In front of the patio we thought we’d have a large flower bed stretching the width of the patio with climbing roses going up the balcony supports.
The front of the house has looked messy for a long time so it will be great to tidy it up. The neighbours all say the place looks a lot better and we’ll take that.
Keep up the good work!
Inching along, trying to get some outside work done before winter. Sending our best to you and Dee.
Rectangles.
I was thinking that, just depends on how much rectangular blue stone we have. Parents had irregular if I remember correctly. Whatever we do I will enjoy building it 🙂
Irregular! Rect looks like it comes from Home Depot. Plus the irregular stones will be more work!!! 🙂
I gotta hand it to you, you are good at digging.
Thanks Eric and for your vote for irregular. We have a friend with an old blue stone quarry so we can get as much irregular stones as we like 🙂 The soil is pretty much sand so easy to dig. We’re both fed up with these piles of dirt as we keep having to shift them! Hopefully we can get rid of them later this year.
I had a lot of fun at the old place shaping the irregular sandstone in our back yard – tic tic tic tic tic tic bomp!
I’m currently digging a trench for drainage through very solid, dry clay that’s filled with large rocks – it’s been slow going. Luckily I don’t think we have rain in the forecast for a few more months ¯\(ツ)/¯
I’ll pick your brains when it comes to laying the stone then 🙂 We also have a diamond blade on our grinder so I can cut thinish pieces. Clay is tough, do you have a mattock, that would help. Sounds like you are making a french drain? We need to do the same around our house, good luck with the digging and can the rocks be used else where in the garden. say for a rock garden?
Well done good improvisation. As for the patio, if you can get irregular free then it’s a no brainer to me.