Decking/garden desgin for 2 bed

Cranipea

Hi, I'm thinking of getting rid of the grass in the back garden of my 2 bed in the park & replacing with decking & either patio slabs or stones. Anyone had work done to their garden & can recommend someone?
Thanks

Charlie-Bravo

I did some sandstone paving myself...worked out really well...I got all supplies from Millbrook Paving - The guy's name is Niall - I'm sure he'll have a few contacts. It's only around the corner - pop up and have a look at the stuff. Paving is heavy work and very hard on your hands if you're up for doing it yourself!

foxy06

Astro do you mind telling me how you do it? I have the garden covered in pebbles at the moment thinking it would be easy maintenance and cleaner but its driving me mad now. Is it possible to lay it over pebbles? Or do I need to remove them? Do you just put sand down and level it off then lay the slaps/cobbles? or is there something else you need to do?

neets

We're in a 3 bed on back row. Quite a slope in the garden but we decked straight out from the back doors to the start of the lawn. We left all the paving as is underneath. The guys that did it put some heavy duty sheeting over it to stop weeds and grass growing up then built a frame and laid decking on top. We dug all around the perimeter and put in wire mesh to stop rats getting in as we had a couple of them get underneath initially! No problems since. Would highly recommend the decking. It's an extra room (when the weather's good!) really opens up the space and great for kids as it's flat.

Charlie-Bravo

@foxy: I had the 'low-maintenance' pebbles also previous to doing the paving. There was about 2 tonne of pebbles in the back garden. I ordered about 25 sq.m of paving and aong with it I got nearly 2 tonne of gravel (aka Clause 804), 2 tonne of sand, 12 bags of cement. I also got no-fines 40mm stone for a french-drain style soakaway.

I kept some of the existing pebbles for edging the finished paving. It is a good idea to count out the different sized slabs and sketch up a pattern. I hate sketching so I used AutoCAD (much easier!!). I managed to only need 4 cuts to slabs by doing this.

To start, I shovelled the clause 804 gravel in with the existing pebbles, then got a wacker (vibrating plate) and flatten the area so it was good and compact. I used timber guides on the edges to make sure the base was 'true'. I made sure there was a slope of about 1 in 80 to let the rainwater run off.

Now I had the base all levelled with a fall, I mixed cement:sand 1:4 (and water) to make dabs to lay the slabs. One dab in each coner and a final dab in the centre of the slab. In most cases the dabs filled the whole area under the slab - although a handful of slabs are slightly hollow! Start in one corner, lay a row of slabs and keep going. A good rubber mallet is worth the money.

The rest is grouting/pointing with a small trowel, and then edging with the pebbles - done forget weed control fabric. Job done! ZZZzzzzzz

Cranipea

Thanks for the info
Have decided against decking. Reckon will go with paving from start to back. But with a higher level towards the back & sleepers to seperate each level. Want low maintanence & decking just doesnt seem to be as low maintanence as i first thought! And rats?! No thanks

Jimjay

Yeah we decked most of our garden and ended up with rats living under it. Blocked some holes and put poison down and not had any since.

Maudi

Cranipea wrote: »

Hi, I'm thinking of getting rid of the grass in the back garden of my 2 bed in the park & replacing with decking & either patio slabs or stones. Anyone had work done to their garden & can recommend someone?
Thanks

hi we live in the woods and we use a local guy called paul.did a great job on our decking and gravel.well recommended <<snip>>

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