On Friday I had the day off to crack on with this project and get it ready to finally move forward to completion having stalled over the last month or more due to nice weather, a holiday and various evenets etc that have severely limited the time we've had to work on it.
My parents were having the little boy for the day and as soon as he was gone I set up my tools on the driveway ready to get to work. After a bit of brain work to think about the best way to tackle things we began by cutting some 2x2 in to lengths to use as pegs to hold the framing we were putting in place which will contain the subbase and hold the grid in place.
Workshop:
With a couple of pegs in place we set about cutting the 6x2 timber for the side making sure it was long enough and cutting one end at the right angle to match the curved driveway. My sliding mitre saw from Lidl turned out to be a brilliant purchase, cutting the board even at the angle was so simple.
Once cut we marked where the top of the grid would come to up the board. We then offered the board up to the edge and found we needed to dig out a little more. Once we were happy the board was at the right height and level we screwed it to the pegs using decking screws.
Side one in place:
We then moved on to the second board, measured where it needed to come to in order to fit the gridding nicely and hammer in two pegs. Again, cutting the board was a nice simple job. And once again we needed to dig out a bit more to get the board at the right level but soon it was in place.
Side two in place:
The third side was a little more tricky as the ground was so hard but we persevered and finally got it in place. With the three sides of framing in place the front garden was finally looking like we were actually doing something with it rather than just being a partially dug out mess as it has been for the past few weeks!!
All we had to do then was ensure it was dug out enough to give room for the aggregate base and the grid. Living in an area with very clayey (sp?) soil this is always a chore as the ground bakes so hard you can barely get the tip of a spade into it, so I set about it with the spade end of a pickaxe I've borrowed from our neighbours. That and some damping got the surface broken up nicely and with my girlfriend raking it into piles and me shovelling we finally got it to the fdepth we wanted all over!! Here it is ready for the next stage - 2 tonnes of aggregate to be added and compacted!
Side 3 in place - finished and ready for the aggregate!!
When starting the project, never having done anything like this, I hadn't really realised just how much earth would need to be dug out....had I known I would have hired a digger and done it all in one go but as they say, you live and learn!!! We currently have huge amounts of earth sitting around the front of the house as you can see in the pics below...and this doesn't include about 40 sacks (the small ones in the second pic) or both turf and earth that we've already taken to the tip!!!
Earth moving:
As mentioned earlier in the thread I have decided to use this soil to fill the grid once it's down as it will only be grass growing in it so it doesn't need perfect and lovely top soil. The rest I was going to get rid of but I have decided I will use it level up areas of the lawn come the autumn as once again that won't need brilliant soil and it would be daft to spend out on something I've already had but gotten rid of!!
The next step before the aggregate arrives is to sort out the drain cover so it matches the level of the grid once it's finished. I've decided to get a new recessed cover, these are designed for putting block paving etc into so they can be matched to the area and be discreet. I will cut some grid to fit and add a couple of small drain holes then it can be filled and grassed to match the rest of the grided area.
My only concern in this is that some of the drain covers are quite deep and I might not have the depth needed to get it level with the grid without removing the toplayer of brick around the drain opening. This however would then leave the level too low and I'm not quite sure how I could then bring the level up to where I need it...
surprised how much they cost the, last one I bought was about £28 from Wickes about 10 years ago.