The Outside Space

Today I am introducing you to the outside of my new home.  

We've done a lot of work to the little patch of land that sits to the right of my new home.  With some help from my son Simon, Alan has completely changed the outside space around the van.

Excited to get stuck in.

We took it from this, originally a bare concrete walled garden area.

 The first job was to cover the concrete fencing slabs with trellis panels to soften the look.  Then we were left with the lumpy, bumpy grass and a few paving slabs hastily put in place for the temporarily borrowed steps.

Then Alan and Simon put in a level paved area ready for the installation of decking.  The outline of a corner planting area was planned and a level surface for the siting of a shed was also installed at the back of the grassed area.

Shortly after that the shed was assembled and put in place.  The flower beds to the right of it started to take shape and then the decking was professionally installed.

The grass was levelled and re-turfed, initially a mat was put down to be under the car, but this proved unsuccessful, so it was time to scrap Plan A and put in place Plan B.  

Also, as you can see in this photo, we made use of some left over trellis to soften the outline of the shed and make it blend into the garden in a less obtrusive way.  Plants from home and from the local garden centre were put into the corner flower bed and some metal bits and bobs were hung from the trellis.  Planters were filled with flowering climbers to eventually grow and soften the trellised areas even more and a lovely new bench was made by Alan from oak slats and antique bench ends and was sited on a couple of the leftover paving slabs.

This is the same as the photo at the top of yesterday's post showing the final exterior layout, with all the skirting in place around the base of the van and the decking.  And this is what shows a bit of Plan B,  which was to put up a trellis fence to cut the garden space in half !! 

 The front area is the right size for my car to neatly slot into and the back area is a nice self-contained, much smaller, but nicely secure for the dogs garden space.  The dividing trellis is cleverly held up by the main trellis on the concrete wall panels on one side and is fixed to the decking with simple cable ties at the other.  For stability it is also supported along it's length by planters, made by Alan and painted  by me in our favourite shade of green.  You can perhaps just see it at the right hand side of my car.  I'll take more photos when I show you the actual garden area on another post.

It shrunk the size of the garden to less than half but it gave us good parking for both cars.  Alan's truck fits neatly across the front of my Fiat when we are both in residence.  The decking was altered by the company that installed it originally to give us a set of steps down into the garden as well as  the steps at the front, this means that the dogs can safely go outside whenever the door to the van is open.

And happy dogs mean happy humans.

Sue xx