Small garden wall

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backboiler wrote: »

It'd want to be right seeing as I've probably only managed to lay an average of about half a brick a day!

It took the Chinese centuries to build the great wall, and most of that has fallen down since.

backboiler

Bristol Freezing Soil wrote: »

It took the Chinese centuries to build the great wall, and most of that has fallen down since.

Well, that's encouraging.:rolleyes:
I reckon they rushed it. 6400 km over a thousand-odd years? I'm not going at even half that pace. Bound to be a better result.
Now all I need is a Dublin Olympics to get the tourists flocking to see it...

backboiler

A number of people expressed interest in this ongoing project.

Well, between the natural elements and some life-stage events, work ground to a halt since September until last weekend but before the Winter I finished the main curved wall.



This will be capped later when I buy the paving flags, probably Tobermore's riven golden type. In the meantime I just have it covered with black plastic to stop water getting into the top of it. Not a pretty sight.

Next up is the steps and after digging up the stoniest ground I've ever come across I had the continuation of the wall curve as the lowest part of the steps and the vague outline of each of the steps but each set back a bit over a brick's depth to allow for the risers. After that I cut a corner off the top two bricks in the wall to allow the new bricks that rise to the top step to fit into place. They're at an angle of just over 90 degrees to the main wall so I'll cut them to match the shape and all will look well when they're covered, hopefully. Needs tidying but it got dark.



Now I suppose I start with putting in some foundation for the lowest step and work from there. I'm not sure what's going to happen with the space between the corner of the wall and the remaining ground when I start building up the steps.

the GALL

Thats looks great backboiler

backboiler

A few more days progress...

First did a foundation to bring the starting point for the first step to the same level as the main wall. About 150 mm of compacted stones followed by about the same of 6:1 concrete. It's probably overdoing it but better safe, etc.



Then did the three courses of bricks (one of which will be below finished ground level) to bring it up to the level of the first step. A bed of about 100 mm of compacted stones behind the first step's riser wall was then covered by another concrete foundation to bring it up level with the top of that step wall. This is the starting level for the second step and also the paving slabs that make up the first step surface will be mortarted into place on this foundation and over the edge of the bricks. Not looking forward to cuttting the flags into the curved shape.
After that had hardened, I continued with the 2-brick high riser wall for the second step. Results below.







Some detail on the corner where all the steps meet the main wall.



It's starting to look like I might get this finished for the Summer!

oleras

Looks well, keep up the good work !!

Lars-irl

I bookmarked this page last year to see how you were getting on, as I was building my own patio last year and was looking for some tips. By chance I clicked on the bookmark to see some progress is been made again.

Glad to see your back at it. These jobs never are as quick as you think:). Looks pretty good what you have done so far.

I'm finished, but never got as complicated as yourself with steps etc.

backboiler

Got a day or so at it over the last few weeks and here's the latest along with some detail of the point where all the curves lead from.





Behind each step can be seen the gap for the electrical cable to power the LEDs along the top of each. I haven't got enough cable (will take about 18 m in total) to finish the job at the minute so need to leave off the last few bricks of the top step until I get the cable in place. I had put in short lengths of garden hose to serve as a conduit for the cable under each step near the corner where they meet and was able to pull a short length through so I can follow up with the real one later. You can see it running along the back of the 3rd step in the middle of the above picture.

Next stage is lighting!

backboiler

No pictures this time, to the relief of anyone on slow a connection.

The last few weeks have seen the lower area (where all the pictures have been taken from) cleared out of all the soil, stones and rubble and dug out to 100 mm below finished level so it's ready to be paved. The slabs have been ordered and delivered. I need to get some bedding sand to finish the job and will get to this when the weather breaks again.

Meanwhile I'm preparing the 49 LEDs that will give some decorative illumination to the top of the wall and steps. Power will come from a simple indoor mains powered 12 V regulated supply though I'll probably add some means of dimming later because at 55 cd on-axis intensity from each there's a bit of a glare of them especially at the centre-point of the main circle, where the table is shown in the original Sketchup drawing.

Each of the LED leads is soldered to thing stranded wire and sealed in 1.6 mm (ID) heatshrink, then covered with 6.4 mm heatshrink starting at the "lip" of the LED. I'm chancing filling the larger heatshrink with decorators caulk after shrinking around the "lip" and before shrinking the rest in the hope it improves the resistance to water ingress. After that I put another ring of 6.4 mm heatshrink around the lip to make it a snug fit in the 6.5 mm hole drilled in the bricks. If there's anyone interested in pictures of any of this, speak up.
With the weather the way it is it'll be a while before the LEDs get installed in the wall.

The other little bit of experimentation was with the paving slabs that will be the wall caps. From a bit of experimentation in Sketchup I saw that a 10° sweep at the radius of the edge of the slab was just under the width of the slab (400 mm). The curve of the wall is two 60° sweeps in an S-shape so it all works out nicely. Taking a few mm either side for joint width I came up with some cutting measurements and tried it out on a few slabs and it looks like it'll do the job. After that success I'm even thinking of doing all the cutting with the little 115 mm angle grinder instead of hiring a con-saw though that might change when I get to cutting out shapes for the steps.

backboiler

Lights done, here's a badly taken night-time picture. They're bright. The picture was taken before they were all aligned so there is some inconsistency in the brightness as seen by the camera. This is all fixed now.



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Finished out the wall on the outer edge of the steps. Only have a night-time picture of this. It's the one at the back, from right to almost left.



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I eventually got all the rubble cleared from the past few years' works in and out of the house. A few skips worth.
That done, I could get on with the paving. A ton-bag of grit sand, a couple of hours of levelling, rolling, measuring, starting again, etc. and some raking led to this. The slope is 1:80.
The outer step wall is probably clearer in this picture too. It looks like it's leaning back with this is more to do with the camera lens, I went and checked again when I saw this picture.



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Shortly after that we got this, using off-cuts of 10 mm timber to keep the spacing consistent.



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By the time I had all the full slabs (i.e. those that didn't need any cutting) laid this was the view. The extended efforts made in the bedding layer paid off well and there's no movement in any of the slabs.



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I started with filling the joints with plain mortar as well but darkness came too soon to get much done.

backboiler

A side view of the same.



The keen-eyed will have noticed that I've also managed to put the first two cut slabs on the first step.
The next stage is to cut and lay all the others.

Instead of running the edges of the paved area up to the edges of the garden, I'm going to have something more organic like a pair of flower beds running along the sides to take care of the uneven garden edges.

backboiler

Another ten months on and another update. No, it still isn't finished but it's nearly there.
All patio slabs cut to profile.




This is one of the flowerbeds mentioned in an earlier post. It's only one brick-on-edge deep but should do the job.




Preparations for the upper wall. the line on the marker stick in the centre is the top of the finished foundaton level.




Upper wall after a couple of courses are done, some of which are below finished ground level.
I was intending to have it 600 mm above finished ground but on reflection I'm thinking it'd be better at about half that for access to the back edge if it's used as a raised bed.




A view of the upper lawn area with a few days growth of grass from seed.
Also visible is the capped wall with all slabs fixed and pointed except the two on the left.

the GALL

Gotta hand it to ya that looks the business