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| Project Back Garden Conversion. |
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| Drnick:
So on the basis that I haven't done anything arcade related for ages but I have been working on projects here I present to you Project Back yard conversion Timescale - 2Yrs of Bank holidays and then only when the sun has been shining I'm a fairly handy guy with powertools and about 8 Years ago I built an 8ft x 6ft Balcony outside my upstairs patio doors, It's built from 150x50 joists 12" off centre and would probably be the only thing left standing if the rest of the house decided to fall down. Because of this the wife thinks I can do pretty much anything and often sets me challenges to test my skills and patience. (I've very much learned after 28 years of living with my wife that whilst I can Learn the skills, the patience not so much). So to start this latest project we go back to April 2016 when the UK actually saw the Sun without any rain and the wife decided we needed a shed/summer house to store our stuff in. I thought it would be a nice simple project and would be cheaper to do it myself then get someone in so got on with coming up with a plan. The basic plan was to remove the slope from the garden and clear the corner for a shed/summer house. (Wasn't sure if I wanted to build or buy, Wife ended up deciding to buy). So here was the garden as of the week or so before Easter 2016, A messy jungle that the cats enjoyed but everyone else hated. |
| Drnick:
Well the wife found a Summer house for £100 which is shown disassembled below (Don't worry it'll be back later) When I bought it I knew it had some issues with a leaky roof, but figured I could just reboard the roof pieces and then refelt (I had some spare 12mm Marine Ply from a bathroom project anyway). So me and a friend, we started clearing the slope out, As we cleared more I figured we may as well just throw it on the top of the garden and sort it out later I figured I could add all the rest of the rubbish to the pile and then get a skip to remove it all (As it turns out you can't have bigger then a 6Yrd for Earth and getting a permit for keeping one on the road is almost impossible around here. Basically I can get a skip dropped for max 1Hr, fill it up and have it go away again) |
| Drnick:
So It was back and forth to the local tip a few times in the wifes car to get rid of all the crap that had gathered around the garden over the years. (Seriously, where does all this **** come from). Well after clearing a chunk of the gradiant away I realised that 2 man power alone was not going to cut the mustard, so I let a bunch of friends know that I needed them for a weekend and we rented a micro digger. I used to Drive forklifts for a living so using this was relatively easy for me. We used the machine to remove a lot more earth and during the process unearthed an unknown pipe (Painted Black so in theory carrying electric) you can just about see it in the right hand side of the following pic. (Sorry for my Bro being in the Pic) and here it is in most of its glory causing panic because I couldn't find an end so we didn't know it was safe to just dig up, we figured it could stay if needed (Needless to say it wasn't) |
| Drnick:
We then got down to digging our post holes, In this case our Posts were going to be 3.5 Mtr Railway sleepers sunk approx 1 Mtr into the ground, Well we dug one hole with no issues at all, lovely clay, auger worked beautifully, The next 2 though we had to fight all the way, It looks like my post holes go into the stone drainaway, I figured the best way round this was as we removed stones from the bottom I use the clay we had an abundance of to shore up the sides. This seemed to work well. We then used the machine to dig out a channel just in front of and between the post holes, Once we had sunk the posts we poured masses of concrete This gave us the following. Hey, look theres that bloody pipe, we found the end of it so knew it was safe to be ripped out. This ramp may not look like much, but when I drove the digger back up it I came to within about 2 degrees of tipping it over onto its back (I had stupidly kept the bucket in close to the cab instead of extending it out as far as possible). New Pants were ordered and once my heart rate got back below silly speeds I got back into the seat and made my way up and out with the digger. (If I can find my wifes old phone I may have video of the incident) |
| Drnick:
We then started putting in sleepers behind the upright posts (Hereafter referred to as the monoliths). We then repeated the process on the other side of the garden and we then have (the 2 Pieces of wood going from the balcony to the garden were put there as a challenge for my cats, I'll give them their due, they all used it :). Seeing it there though planted a seed of an idea for later on. As the sun rose so did the wall, And finally Finished |
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