Yes, another one of these guys! 🙂
It’s the final post!
“Yay” says my back!
“Yay” says all the readers who have no interest in DIY! 🙂
Anyway, here is what I got up to on a few odd half days here and there to finish it all up, plus the final budget/costings of the whole shebang…
Chainsawing
I bought a chainsaw for £60 which seemed ridiculously cheap, so I could cut up the sleepers we have in our garden. There were two reasons for this:
- So I could actually lift the buggers to get rid of most of them
- So I could cut them up into little brick sized portions to redo our borders
Cutting them up into more manageable lengths (these buggers are heavy!)
I was cutting 5-6cm width “bricks” off as well to make a nicer looking border…
Laying out the rough line of the new border. Let’s go “wiggly” to make it a bit more interesting! 🙂
Here’s the final effect! The other thing I did was make sure the wood brick border was low enough so I can get our lawnmower over the edge so I don’t need to do the edges manually, which is what I was having to do before as the borders were really high compared to the grass. That was very annoying! Now although the lawn is about twice as large it should take me half the time to mow. We bought a manual lawnmower a bit like this one a few months back which is really good and low noise so I would definitely recommend one of these!
Big shout out to TFS Jr who helped me lug the chainsaw back from town!
Levelling
But before I did that I had to move lots of heavy objects around to clear the mud…
I moved our self watering pots right up against the fence to get them out of the way
Nearly done!
Level! The whole final levelling process took me about 2 hours which isn’t all that long when you think about it. It wasn’t billiard table flat – I just trod it down with my feet – and it wasn’t 100% level but it was good enough. I was working solidly on the basis of the Pareto principle on this one 🙂
Laying turf
It started absolutely wanging it down with rain as soon as I started to lay the turf which wasn’t that fun, but it did put a bit of a rocket up my arse and I got the whole lot down in just over an hour so every dark grey cloud has a silver lining I guess
Tips from my delivery driver on laying turf:
- When levelling just use your feet to stamp down the mud – don’t use a compactor otherwise the grass roots will have a hard time bonding. I guess the alternative if you want a really flat lawn is to compact it then add another layer of top soil that is much looser and rake that level.
- Lay in damp weather if possible – check!
- Overlap the edges by about 1 inch, then push both edges down, this will help the edges bond faster especially if damp and will stop gaps appearing if/when the turf dries out.
Laying it all down.
I decided to use a big kitchen knife to cut the turf, seemed to work pretty well. Big pair of scissors also seem to work pretty well. Please do not constitute this as advice (see my disclaimer if you are in any doubt about that!)
Finishing off the pointing on the patio
No pictures on this one as you can’t really see the difference before and after, but I had to wait for some dry weather to finish off filling in the cracks with cement mix. See here for previous description on how I did that. My only extra advice here is to reserve a good amount of time for this. It takes a lot longer than you originally might think, the whole lot took a good 8 hours I would say which was the same amount of time it took me to lay most of the slabs.
Stood back and admired handywork
Here is the final effect!
Another shout out to TFS Jr who was helping me lay down some more pebbles by the flower beds once it was all done… 🙂
A nice pic of me looking rather soaked after laying the turf. Unfortunately I am so wet here you can’t actually see any dry areas to see what colour these clothes usually are… but trust me, I was soggy all the way through!
Finally, here is a “before” and after picture so you can see fully how much it’s changed! The before is actually from about 3 years ago when we moved in but the decking has been there since then and that is the main part that has changed.
Added up the final cost
Here is the final costings table. I’m pretty happy with the total being around the £1200 mark, I thought it might be nearer £2000 before I started. We will no doubt spend a couple of extra hundred over the next 6 months on a few plants to spruce it all up a bit but we’d have done that anyway, but this just allows us to do that without worrying too much that we’d already gone over budget.
| Where? | What? | Cost? |
| B&Q | Patio slabs 20sq.m | £628.00 |
| Screwfix | Titan Angle Grinder | £29.99 |
| Soft Handled Trowel Set 6Pc | £14.99 | |
| Site Optimus Gel Knee Pads | £15.99 | |
| Flexi Tubs Yellow Pack of 2 | £18.99 | |
| Ear Defenders 29.8dB SNR | £5.99 | |
| Rubber Mallet 24oz | £6.49 | |
| 15cm screws | £12.49 | |
| Bosch Drilling & Screwdriving Set 103 Pieces | £19.99 | |
| Erbauer Diamond Segmented Blade 115 x 22.23mm | £4.99 | |
| Chainsaw Oil | £4.99 | |
| Wickes | Sharp sand bags x 34 | £54.06 |
| Ballast bags x 34 | £64.26 | |
| Cement x 3 | £14.25 | |
| Sharp sand bags x 9 | £14.31 | |
| Cement x 3 | £14.25 | |
| Jewsons | Compactor Hire 1 week | £63.00 |
| Van hire place | Van hire 1 day | £39.50 |
| turfonline.co.uk | Turf 21m Sq. | £100.20 |
| Garden centre | Random bits n bobs | £29.46 |
| Homebase | Laser Level | £29.99 |
| Argos | Chainsaw | £59.99 |
| Total | £1,246.17 |
Out of that lot I would say the Laser level and the Bosch drill bit set were kinda superfluous to the job. And I don’t know why I bought 2 of the big tubs to mix the cement, I definitely only needed one (I think it was on offer if you bought two!). Apart from that everything was definitely useful!
It’s probably also worth bearing in mind I borrowed the following useful tools off of my Dad:
- Sledgehammer
- Crowbar
- Wheelbarrow
- Pick axe (for hammering out tough roots and stuff)
Also a general tool kit is always handy when starting a job like this but I’m assuming most people would have one anyway if they were considering taking on such a task! 🙂
Well… I think that’s your lot!
Cheers for reading/following all the way through if you have done and normal posting will be resumed shortly!
Discussion (23) ¬
Hi TFS,
That looks absolutely brilliant – very well done on such a superb effort and a great looking garden!
To be clear – I have no interest in DIY but more of a “Pay Someone Else to Do It For You” – I would not have had the patience, will or desire to do that but huge credit – looks brilliant!
FiL
Thanks FiL!
Maybe you can pay me next time you need something done 😉
Assuming your second lug is still cement free: If you go camping the big lugs are useful as washing bowls or even baths for little kids. My 7 yr old still loves a “lug bath” though part of the fun each year now is seeing how much of herself she can still fit in!
Haha that is a brilliant idea. It is still completely clean so will definitely consider using it for such a purpose. Might be fun as a kind of paddling pool next summer as well. Cheers!
Great job and I love the turf laying tips.
Thanks Chris, glad someone found that useful.
Absolutely love the before and after pics! Well done, TFS – fantastic work!
Cheers weenie! Really shows how much of a change it is although looks even more drastic in real life actually.
Woww – it’s so pretty!! I’m impressed!
Thanks J!
Massive job, how good does it feel to stand back and say “I did this!”? I bet you’ll also get a great deal of satisfaction when TFS Junior’s out there, playing happily and safely. You must have saved a motza compared to paying someone else, and picked up a range of new skills. Maybe you should have made your own YouTube videos to give us Aussies a run for our money 😜 Congratulations, you should be very proud.
It feels very good, that along with the money saving aspect is the main reason why we do stuff like this, right? 🙂
Haha, I have considered doing my own YouTube vids, I think it would be really good for someone who is a comparative beginner to do them because then you would capture common mistakes to avoid etc… That often get overlooked by the pros as they just tell you how to do it rather than how not to do it, if that makes sense…?
So far I haven’t found that many videos by the pros that tell you the mistakes to avoid, it’s just like “Do X,Y and Z and bosh there you go I did it in half a day” when in reality it takes an amateur about half a week 😀
And, thanks!
Hey TFS
Read the whole series with interest and awe. Kudos to you for taking on this project, I think I would have found it too daunting. The pictures in your posts were great as they really showed the whole journey.
Well done and what a mighty fine looking garden you have now. Mrs TFS must be delighted!
OR
Thanks OR, tried to capture as much on camera as I could without impeding my progress too much, as I think this sort of thing is all about the visuals really. Too many words is definitely boring when it comes to describing a project!
She was very delighted and so was the little one when she first went for a run around. Thanks again! 🙂
Dude, I am tired just looking at you. But well done.
Hopefully you had a beer or three to celebrate. Congratulations, friend.
Had my fair share of the amber nectar since getting it done, don’t you worry. Thanks!
Mr Moustache would be proud of you – saved money, kept yourself busy, did something that is intrinsically healthy. I’m slightly envious because I so want to get into my garden but just can’t be bothered, and now the dark nights are coming in….maybe next year!
I definitely got in there just before that cut off point!
I still have some plants to plant but haven’t got round to that yet, need to get them in before the ground starts to freeze haha.
Wow seriously impressive! I’m oddly obsessed with your self watering pots! did you make them? i need a how to!
Haha glad you like them. They are quite handy for forgetful/neglectful gardeners such as myself (or just when you go on holiday).
I didn’t DIY in this case, I found them online I think it was about about £50 for two sets, with 4 pots in each that gave me 8 pots. I didn’t think that was that bad.
ERE Jacob has some instructions on how to make some for free with huge plastic tubs if you can get hold of some, I had no idea of where to source such a thing in the UK though!
Here is the post in any case, hopefully it’s useful, let me know how you get on?
http://earlyretirementextreme.com/container-gardening-using-diy-self-watering-pots.html
Turned out nice! Great job!
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