Brief – To change the existing paving in rear garden surrounding rear of house, extending the existing patio and path at the rear of the house and adding a path to a pergola in the far corner of the garden. Adding edging all around the existing lawn to define the grass from the borders.
The customer had decided that rather than move house, they would stay and make the garden better and more useable. This entailed moving an existing gazebo off the existing patio whilst we lifted and relayed it and also a pergola whilst we did the same.
We also needed to create a new pathway in front of their conservatory to the other side of the garden and a path and patio for the pergola in the far corner of the garden. The customer had a small shed on the far side of the conservatory which needed replacing, but had originally been laid on gravel. The new shed would need to sit on a good concrete base and the new patio would butt up to the concrete shed base.
The addition of electrics to the pergola was agreed whilst we discussed the project as it would be easier for us to lay the armoured cable whilst works were taking place rather than try to do this at a later date. This would allow the customer to get an electrician to wire up some lighting once we had finished.
The first conversation with the customer came once we had lifted the existing patio, as the builder who had created the conservatory had put the rainwater down pipes into the ground with the water going underneath the existing patio – probably why the patio was failing. To fix this we then added ACCO drain channels all around the conservatory, concreting them in to ensure they would be secure.
The customer had to provide more input when creating curves between the patio and the paths near the grass as the lady of the house didn’t want to see straight lines everywhere.
The patio had a 5 drain covers of differing sizes which had to be changed for inset drain covers to ensure that the patio would look its best and the drains didn’t dominate the space as they currently did.
The jointing compound we used was black which went with the conservatory colour of dark grey.
We used tegular blocks to create a definition between the grass and the existing borders which complemented the slate and edged the border of the patio and the grass.
The job took 16 days during the hottest summer since 1976.
The patio was created using 4 project packs of Marshalls Casarta Slate.
