Backyard Reno - Stage 2 of 3
So, last post I talked about our plans for the backyard. Now I have some picture we took while the work was being done.
Below is what is left of the car port, hhmm, problem one, the main retaining wall that was acting as a fence and was going to be used as a sort of feature wall had to be knocked down :-( Turned out that when it was put up, they layed it on about 5mm of mortar, so, it was very unstable. Last thing I wanted was Louis or Cassie bumping it and the damn thing falling on them. So the guys walked behind it and pushed it over with absolutely no effort. So, I am so glad I told them to knock it down.
So, we have the car port walls out of the way, turned out we also pulled down the roof too. We could either pull the roof down, and then get the earthmoving done for half the price, or leave it up, and pay way more....quick calc on how much it would cost to put it back up, and yeah, pulled it down. Now we can see this is going to need a large amount of dirt moved...
So, we can see the guys marking out the areas that need to be excavated, in essence we want two retaining walls in, one to replace the existing "little" one in the background here. And another to replace where the car port was and to run right across the yard to meet up with the other side that is just below the granny flat.
We have the shovel here, taking out the two levels, worked out quite well. Only took Adam one day to do this work. He had this shovel and a truck. Parked the truck up where the car port is, and filled it there...Of course, seem with each little part of the project, something minor goes wrong. In this case, Adam had to remove the gates to get the truck up. But left the bolts in, and one on. So, the bolts got bent, one gate had a bit broken off it, and a brick on the support post was broken, oh well, beside that the job was great.
Picture from under the granny flat looking out to where the levels are being made. The retaining wall that runs up from the ground and then connects into the other will be removed in the end. This is to open up this area, so the kids have much more usable playing area.
Now, the excavation has been done, we have the two levels done, with a small cut made for where the stairs are going to go, right up against the granny flat there.
So, this is the first levels retaining wall going up...we now have the pipe work from the pool underground, rather then being exposed. But then the excavator ripped out the second level, the power lines running from the back of the house to the pool where cut...so David fixed that for us :-) David, as always has been a great help and sorted all of our electrical issues, and helped out when ever needed.
Now, as a side note to the work, this picture was taken on Beck's birthday....we had 20 people coming for a party and originally the work was meant to be finished. Bugger!!! Oh well, a ramp, some stakes and tape sorted that out. We had the party up the back on the Deck. But you can see where the stairs are going to go.
Now, a while later, we have the retaining walls done, the stairs in and Beck and the Kids did the centre garden. They moved 1 tonne or gold/yellow rocks up to the second level. I was in Brisbane for work, at that stage my Boss, Mark was on holidays and left me in charge of our development team. So, if you know Beck, she couldn't wait for me to get back so they did it.
What you see here is me moving some of the turf we bought to lay in the bottom section. This was after I moved 10 cubic metres of dirt...that was fun. Some of it had to be moved up to the top section, I must admit, I had a little help from the landscapers on that....otherwise it would have taken a week, rather then a day.
Here is looking up the back...you can see the stairs in, the two walls, the central garden section, has gold/yellow rocks as a base, stepping stones to walk along and then two rows of lavender. I have moved "some" of the dirt, and leveled/compressed it using a hand roller. Beck and I are about to lay the turf...only took us about 3 hours to lay it. We had to cut in the stepping stones that run between the back door and stairs. You might have noticed the de-roofed car port in the back there...well...we *thought* it was a good idea at the time to move it up there. As trying to get it down the driveway seemed too hard at the time. Ended up getting Mick and David to help with that later...
So, there are a few snaps over a month or so, of the landscaping work we had done in the back...next I will post some picture of the completed project. Car Port, lawns, central garden, view from the top, stairs that run up to the pool and what ever I have of the new yard.
Below is what is left of the car port, hhmm, problem one, the main retaining wall that was acting as a fence and was going to be used as a sort of feature wall had to be knocked down :-( Turned out that when it was put up, they layed it on about 5mm of mortar, so, it was very unstable. Last thing I wanted was Louis or Cassie bumping it and the damn thing falling on them. So the guys walked behind it and pushed it over with absolutely no effort. So, I am so glad I told them to knock it down.
So, we have the car port walls out of the way, turned out we also pulled down the roof too. We could either pull the roof down, and then get the earthmoving done for half the price, or leave it up, and pay way more....quick calc on how much it would cost to put it back up, and yeah, pulled it down. Now we can see this is going to need a large amount of dirt moved...
So, we can see the guys marking out the areas that need to be excavated, in essence we want two retaining walls in, one to replace the existing "little" one in the background here. And another to replace where the car port was and to run right across the yard to meet up with the other side that is just below the granny flat.
We have the shovel here, taking out the two levels, worked out quite well. Only took Adam one day to do this work. He had this shovel and a truck. Parked the truck up where the car port is, and filled it there...Of course, seem with each little part of the project, something minor goes wrong. In this case, Adam had to remove the gates to get the truck up. But left the bolts in, and one on. So, the bolts got bent, one gate had a bit broken off it, and a brick on the support post was broken, oh well, beside that the job was great.
Picture from under the granny flat looking out to where the levels are being made. The retaining wall that runs up from the ground and then connects into the other will be removed in the end. This is to open up this area, so the kids have much more usable playing area.
Now, the excavation has been done, we have the two levels done, with a small cut made for where the stairs are going to go, right up against the granny flat there.
So, this is the first levels retaining wall going up...we now have the pipe work from the pool underground, rather then being exposed. But then the excavator ripped out the second level, the power lines running from the back of the house to the pool where cut...so David fixed that for us :-) David, as always has been a great help and sorted all of our electrical issues, and helped out when ever needed.
Now, as a side note to the work, this picture was taken on Beck's birthday....we had 20 people coming for a party and originally the work was meant to be finished. Bugger!!! Oh well, a ramp, some stakes and tape sorted that out. We had the party up the back on the Deck. But you can see where the stairs are going to go.
Now, a while later, we have the retaining walls done, the stairs in and Beck and the Kids did the centre garden. They moved 1 tonne or gold/yellow rocks up to the second level. I was in Brisbane for work, at that stage my Boss, Mark was on holidays and left me in charge of our development team. So, if you know Beck, she couldn't wait for me to get back so they did it.
What you see here is me moving some of the turf we bought to lay in the bottom section. This was after I moved 10 cubic metres of dirt...that was fun. Some of it had to be moved up to the top section, I must admit, I had a little help from the landscapers on that....otherwise it would have taken a week, rather then a day.
Here is looking up the back...you can see the stairs in, the two walls, the central garden section, has gold/yellow rocks as a base, stepping stones to walk along and then two rows of lavender. I have moved "some" of the dirt, and leveled/compressed it using a hand roller. Beck and I are about to lay the turf...only took us about 3 hours to lay it. We had to cut in the stepping stones that run between the back door and stairs. You might have noticed the de-roofed car port in the back there...well...we *thought* it was a good idea at the time to move it up there. As trying to get it down the driveway seemed too hard at the time. Ended up getting Mick and David to help with that later...
So, there are a few snaps over a month or so, of the landscaping work we had done in the back...next I will post some picture of the completed project. Car Port, lawns, central garden, view from the top, stairs that run up to the pool and what ever I have of the new yard.
posted by Unknown at
10:20 PM
