A sloping, overgrown garden turned into a sandstone patio, steps and a new lawn, with every load carried through the house.
// The brief
Rose and Jill's garden climbed away from the back of the house, overgrown at the top, with nowhere flat to sit.
The garden rose away from the back of the house. The top was overgrown, the rest was gravel and old timber, and there was nowhere flat to sit.
It's only 4.5 m wide, and there's no side access. Every bag of stone, every sleeper and every barrow of soil had to go in and out through the house.
// Before and after
Both are real photos of this job, taken before we started and when we finished.
// The hurdle
Our first design, a fully paved three-tier garden, came in well over what Rose and Jill wanted to spend.
So we went back to it, more than once. We paved the bottom of the garden, where it gets used most. The top needed little paving anyway, because the shed takes up all of it. Sleeper walls hold the slope on both sides, with a sloped lawn in between. A smaller scope, built to the same standard.
// What we did
We paved the bottom of the garden in Indian sandstone, Kandla Grey, on a full mortar bed over a compacted stone sub-base. The agreement was for concrete flags; we upgraded to sandstone.
Sleeper walls run round three sides of the patio, with a strip of black and white pebbles at their foot. Steps lead up to a new lawn, with a concrete base and their metal shed at the top, and new featheredge fencing down the left and across the back.
// Problems we solved
The problem
Everything had to go through the house: about 35 tonnes in and out, past glass doors and over tiled floors.
How we solved it
We put floor and door protection down on the first day and took every load through with care. Nothing was broken.
The problem
The garden is only 4.5 m wide, with a narrow drive: a skip, a mixer, a digger and every delivery fighting for the same space.
How we solved it
We started at the top of the garden and worked down to the house, and staggered it all: five deliveries and two grab lorries for the waste. It was hard going, but it worked.
The problem
The steps were designed in sleepers with plain slabs, which wouldn't have matched the new sandstone patio.
How we solved it
We built them in blockwork and faced and topped them in the same sandstone, so the patio and steps read as one piece.
“I really didn't want to give her budget paving on a garden like this. I just wanted it to look good for them.”
// Honestly
// More photos
Three close-ups made from photos of Rose and Jill's finished garden.
A garden paved wall to wall, opened up with curved paving, two lawns and proper drainage.
Chalfont
80 square metres of sandstone, raised to house height over failing concrete.
Luton
A garden left half dug by another firm, made safe and rebuilt with a porcelain patio and lawn.
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Where we work. Dunstable, Luton, Leighton Buzzard, St Albans, Hemel Hempstead, Aylesbury, Milton Keynes, and the towns and villages in between.