Not strictly a renovation hence the new page, but a side project, it was decided that having bought a load of patio blocks off eBay a few years ago that it would be a good idea to well lay a patio. So back in May when I was off for 3 weeks on holiday I started laying this patio, just to the right of our front door. Now the area where the patio is being laid has probably had vehicles of one sort or another drive over it or park on it for well over 100 years, so what I thought would be a quick job to dig out the gravel that made up the front turned out to be not so easy after all, in some places it might have been easier to dig through solid rock, but I persevered and managed to clear out an area that is about 2 x 3 metres.

Now you may be wondering why the drainpipes, well it turns out that the drainage from the roof, thank God it's not the sewage goes under this particular part of the front of the house, and the drain pipes were the old vitreous clay i.e. brittle and don't like having pick axes chipping at them, having broken the first pipe I was careful with the second one, only to find it's cracked anyway as they don't appear to have been all that well protected, and from the condition of the ground I think they've been cracked a long time, basically all the ground in the bottom left hand corner was wet and pretty much solid clay whereas to the right hand side it was pretty much all compacted gravel, which I've recycled and used to fill in the soil filled area on the left.

It's not that easy to see but I have now laid concrete to support the edge bricks on three sides of the patio, I would have got much further but it's far too hot to be faffing about with concrete and cement and brick so it's taking longer than I had anticipated.

Ohh and once this and the first bedroom are complete I'll be moving onto fitting a new kitchen while at the same time doing a full time job :):).....

As with anything in life, hiccups occured, the patio is pretty much the same as above, except more weeds :), but the bedroom has been completed, and I've started on the kitchen. Nothing like doing things in order, and this is nothing like it.