Saturday 18 April 2009

Ground Force 2

Saturday dawned with beautiful blue skies and the promise of a fantastically warm spring day.
With this in mind, we decided to start the next phase of our garden makeover - my brick built raised planter. Our garden is most definitely not on a level so we hope that by the end of this whole building project we might get a garden with stepped levels and a lot less grass for Fred to dig up and bring in the house when it's wet.
We started by placing the breeze blocks in the general position that we wanted - with me shouting orders from the bedroom window! Well it was much easier to get the full picture for my 'vision' from up there!

Then it was a case of skimming off the grass and digging out the footings

Then the concrete footings get placed and levelled out with a spirit level to ensure a good finish for the brickwork

Then, once the concrete went off, the bricks get placed back in position and the mortar is used...

At this point many many swear words are used, at me as I wanted a long sweep on the front of the planter instead of a squared off flat wall - Paul had a real game making the front sweep of bricks stay put and ties in together

and as you can see he has managed it - and done a marvellous job of it too!

Once the mortar has gone off, we (that's the royal we of course) will render the front and inside lip of the planter and paint it white to match the garage wall and tie it all in together.
Whilst Paul was being creative, I was getting down and dirty with a paint brush and a tub of creosote.

the initial brush strokes were a little scary, as the colour was so dark

but once it was finally complete - it looked a darn site better than it had

All in all a very productive weekend, despite the severe sunburn to both of our backs and faces!

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