Planter is Completed
The final stage of the construction of the planter is shown below

Here is the top (right hand side of Planter) showing the final Construction in prrogress you will that the narrow lower planter is now filled with Earth.











Here you can see the front wall completed it only needs a couple of bags 750KG each of Soil to be aded to fill up the planter

Here is the almost finished construction (still some lights to fit and connect)

these two photos below show the planter once the soili was delivered -> we even have som plants!

It is a good time to thank Bob and Liam for all the work that went into this last part of the project - the design sort of evolved during the Month and we are pleased with the end result.



I hope that in 2012 the very last technical point of construction - fitting and wiring the lights will be completed and then the chief gardner will plant up the main planter in April so after january we will have to wait to see the final result of the planter fitted out with all sorts of different plants
I wishh my readers (I suspect not so many a happy new year in 2012

Christmas Update
At last after wizzing around Europe I have found time to show you  what has been happpening in December. 

Here you see some of the foundations  laid
andbelow the start of the construction of the front wall, which will also be the front wall of the planter

Constructing the planter & wall

Final bit of Foundation
The lat jof of this project is to build a small wall along the front of the garden and construct a planter to add some plants . because the ground ha sbeen disturbed so much by the original excavation it was necessary to let it settle for a 2-3 weeks . as we neareed the end of the september Bob returned with his digger to build the foundations for the wall and planters

Here you see the front excavated and some of the shuttering in place ready for the foundations In the picture below you see the end of this process with the concrete just poured into the shuttering.

Here you see the foundation for the front wall and the planter in place once these are hard we can start finally to begin the last walls  of the project

The start of the front wall which will step its way up the hill.
We decided to have a steped wall as this will follow the steps in the existing wall that we have built.

Lets fix the lights

So here is the unlikely startting point for adding the lights to the wall - here you see the cable we laid behind the wall coming through the concrete reinforced breeze block waiting for the light to be fitted here i will explain waht you need to do to fit the lights - in all I fitted 9 lights around the wall , these will be controlled by a sensor which will switch them on when it gets dark but is clever enough to switch them off between midnight and a couple of hours before dawn- this is done by a clever light sensor _ i will explain mor about this when we conect up the lights to the supply .

here is the somewhat large fixing block (around 80mm deeep) with two holse predrilled.
using a wooden template I bored teo 8mm diameter holes and inserted the green rawplugs and then screwing the wooden block to the wall - if necesssary this was done several times so that the light fitting ended flush with the wall - not as easy as it looks
the light itself consists of a plastic outer a metal back and a glass front there is of course a light and a reflector but these are fitted after the light is wired

The lights were made by Phillips and are called "Massive" dont ask me why you will see the three pieces that are in the box seperated ready for fitting.





The first Job is tofix the plastic box to the wooden block so that the edge of the plastic box is in line with the brickwork - later on we will fill in the small gap betwen the plastic box and the wall






Here you see we have filled the gaps we had with Mortar ready to screw on the back and finally fit the front

So here is the light finally fitted waiting fro the final wiring of the light to be done by the electrician. once it has been wired in the reflector plate will hide the wires and we fit the low energy bulb.

Lastly we will then fit the sensor device and conect all the lights to the mains supply

The Blocks are Down

Well, its not completely finished but tonight our cars are parked on the new drive.
This weekend I will start to fit the lights so that they can be wired up by the electrician.

Tomorrow Bob will finish of a few remaining items and then we will have a rest while the earth settles behind the walls, before work starts on the planter - Right hand edge of this picture
Below is a picture taken the other way from the big tall wall to wards the entrance.

The corner piece is not quite finished and will look a little strange until the other surrounding brickwork is in place - To mirror the wall on the other side

 -   we will have a stepped wall - height 450mm running along the front  here is a picture of the existing wall at the front of the drive. 

Craft Paving



photo: B Craft

If you wondered why its called Craft paving then this is  the reason,

• Great Brickwork
• Perfectly laid blocks
• Underneath a correctly prepared surface

Here you see a view of the blocks that were laid today - the edging black/grey bricks will be fitted tomorrow.

This picture shows where the new clean brick joins the old chalky driveway - we have some cleaning to do ..
However in terms of level and fit this for me is perfect.
the final picture below shows the view towards
the entrance of the drive

The Drive Preperation
Today  we comenced the final preperation of the drive - the first point was to bring the chalk base down to the right level such that the different base layers could be applied*

(*To keep in line with the existing drive I had asked Bob to include these three layers in the quote - so that the additional bit of driveway was of identical specification to that laid previously by Roefield driveways and we confirm that after 4-5 years the condition of the drive was excellent!

One small job I had to do was to cover the
mains water pipe - see picture with gravel now added above the pipe - approx 100mm of pea shingle,  so now were ready to commence the backfilling behind the walls.

Dry Lean Mix

Cement / ballast mix

This picture shows the" before" picture behind the main wall - the after picture will be in a couple of days.

Now that the last remaining chalk was dug out for the drive, Bob started to lay the different layers Above  you see the drylene mix being compacted

The next layer I had asked for was then applied
Ballast dry mixed with Cement- with fabric on top of the first layer mirroring the construction of the original drive.

Liam stating the process of compacting the sand

While all this was in process the Brick pavers arrived if things go well tomorrow we might even mange to lay a few bricks of the new drive.

So by the end of Monday we have an initila layer of sand - work continues tomorrow.

Friday 7th October Rescued by E H SMITH

As I explained yesterday this morning I set off to E H Smith at Bovingdon,
and explained my predicament to the guy there (I am sorry I never asked his name)
I took with me a sample of the existing brick (IBSTOCK SURREY MULTI)  - with holes - see below - and he had a look and selected this Terca brick for me and we went and found a sample and decided it was perfect.
I collected 50 of these bricks and spread them around the car and 30 minutes later was back home.

The Terca bricks are made by  Wienerberger
click the link and if you look around you will find the bricks.
they come from exactly the same part of the country so must use the same clay
Here is a picture taken Friday lunch time showing the new brick in Place - with no more holes.

It looks nuch better without the holes I am very happy with this result.
While I was away getting the bricks everyone else carried on building walls and Kevin finished off the big wall on the side;  here are a couple of pictures. One showing Kevin finishing off the wall and the last one for the week shows the situation as of Friday evening.
both walls 99% complete , Hopefully we will start to prepare the substructure for the block paving on Monday.

its time for the weekend - a great job done by everyone this week.

So here we are both walls done  - whats left to do

• Spread the drylene
• Spread the sand
• lay the bricks
• check soil is compacted
• lay foundations front wall & Planter
• Build front walls (we may delay this)
• Build planter

I have to fit the 9 lights and then get Richard the electrician to come and connect it all up to the sensor.

Final  word of the week - Special thanks to Kevin the Bricklayer master craftsman!

Kevin The Master Brickie(Thursday)
Today we were lucky enough to be joined by Kevin the master Brickie.
The pictures below show how the day went.
Bob worked on the front wall  while kevin(dark blue jumper) worked  on the side tall wall
This picture - taken at lunch time shows that in the course of the morning Kevin had grown the wall to 27 rows.
and this was now a double wall no more breeze block!

Bob worked on the front wall while kevin continued on the side now standing on the building trestles meanwhile Liam worked hard and kept every one supplied with mortar  I ocasionally supplied cups of tea.


By the end of the day we had really made great progress with Kevin now adding the finishing row of bricks seen laid up the wall above the lamp enclosure - it looks like this will be finished tomorrow.

The next picture shows one of my mistakes I forgot to get the finish bricks for the steps in the front wall, These wire cut bricks are excellent but are similar to engineering bricks because they have holes in the centre - I forgot this and did not mention it to Bob so I take the blame for this. The result - see below is not very pretty

I discussed this with Lizzie and we decided that we could either try and find a similar matching brick or failing that use dark grey engineering brick to finish it off.

I decided that it would be best to try and find a matching brick and on Friday morning I would explain to Bob and ask him to remove the end bricks and I would go to a mega builders merchents at Bovingdon (have a look at their site
E H SMITH
I remebered that they have a huge range of Bricks and very helpfull staff

E H SMITH



Wednesday More Bricks and some Cables

Tuesday evening I contacted the electrician to confirm how the cable should be laid arounf the bricks, and on wednesday morning after dog walking i did some electrical labouring threading the cable behind the brickwork before the wall got too high if you click on the pictures below you will see the cables waiting to be conected to the lights , My job is to fit the lights so theey line up correctly in the wall and then the real electrician will come check that what have done is correct and then conect up the lights with the armoured cable.
By lunchtime we had 20 rows of brickworkwhich sounds a lot but as you will see
there will be lots more.
Below you have a shot of the front wall where we have the start of the 22nd row
More picture in my next post.