#AD – Collaborative Post

The Big Garden Project – It’s on days like this, when the sun is shining and that I am not at work, that I am truly grateful for having my own home with a garden. After living in a flat for 7 years of my adult life, you cannot underestimate the simple pleasures of having your own private outside space. Even having somewhere to hang your washing is a novelty after living with socks, pants and towels hanging from every radiator in sight! Now in our family home, with a 3 year old and a second baby on the way, we are so blessed to have an amazing space for our children to play together as they grow up.

Our garden is HUGE – 150ft long by 30ft wide, and at times although I wish the house had used up a bit of that space instead, I absolutely love the garden and what we have done with it.

It hasn’t always looked so lovely however – the garden was a huge project for us, as when we moved in it was FAR from family friendly!

As you can see in the Before shots above, the garden was quite frankly, a bit of a mess!

The lounge door stepped out onto an unsafe patio space, with rough gravel, uneven surfaces and a wall that had at some point in it’s long history, burst its banks and started to crumble. The steps leading to the lawn were uneven, and therefore navigating down them with a toddler who was slightly unsteady on her feet was not a very appealing prospect.

The bottom end of the garden was just as bad. So bad in fact that we very rarely ventured down there. For whatever reason, the previous owners had used the far end of the garden as a bit of a dumping ground, and often had makeshift fires down there. As a result, there was lots of broken glass, pipes and random bits of metal sticking out of the hard and dead ground. The shed was falling apart, and the fence – if you can call it a fence, was sheets of corrugated plastic propped up to simply keep the garden secure from the garages behind.

When Erin started walking we decided that enough was enough. We wouldn’t have sold the house the way it was, and we were likely to be staying for some time, so we bit the bullet and decided to invest in doing it properly.

We drew up sketches, and planned what we wanted, including an upper patio area with a wall (with room to eat and entertain outside), new safe steps, a soft play area for Erin with slides and swings, and a flower bed or two, somewhere we could teach Erin about nature. I set my sights on more simple things, including a fairy garden and a herb garden – you can tell I am more of a completer finisher personality type!! 🙂

Whilst we did a lot of the work ourselves (a lot of garden DIY items can be sourced from online retailers like Garden Toolbox) and we did have to get in some professional help – paving for one is not something that we felt confident doing (We tried, and managed to lay one slab in an hour after breaking three!). We also salvaged what ever we could, using old railway sleepers that were being trashed to our advantage.

During the project the garden was pretty much a no go zone, but myself and Erin would occasionally venture down to have a look at the diggers or help take Daddy supplies of tea and coffee!! With footings dug, we had a lovely wall built from reclaimed bricks, and lots of ground materials bought in to raise the level of the upper patio so that it was flat and smooth, before compressing and bringing in Chris our super talented paver to finish the job for us. We liked the top patio so much, we also then opted for a lower patio as well, meaning we had room for some loungers and potentially a bbq to go down the bottom!

At the bottom of the garden, the shed was dismantled and a mini JCB hired for the day, to remove massive amounts of soil – some of the rubbish we found amongst the ground was ridiculous! Old china, car engine parts, – you name it- someone had clearly had a dumping field day!! Annoyingly, a lot of the ground then had to be replaced with new, before lots of digging and compressing could begin!

Once a lot of the manual work was out of the way, I was pleased that I could get involved and help Mike with some of the less physical tasks. I wasn’t afraid to get my hands dirty though, and helped clear the space that would become Erin’s soft play area, and the lower patio on which our shed would be placed. I even contributed to digging the footings for the railway sleepers, although got a  little carried away and dug them deep enough for a funeral plot, before Mike had to back fill a lot of it! 🙂

The After photographs just cannot do the hard work justice – but I am so so proud of the finished effect. My father in law works at a garden centre, so we were lucky enough to get some discounts on plants and potting, and I loved adding finishing touches like my herb garden, patio furniture and of course Erin’s fairy garden! 🙂

The play area was a massive success, and Erin loves having her friends over to play. It’s great to know that they have a safe landing if they fall! Unlike some of the traditional rubber matting, this rubber soft material is made from recycled car tyres, and was available in loads of different colours. It doesn’t allow grass to grow through as it is placed on a ground sheet, and so far we have only had the one stubborn weed that has found its way in! 🙂

For Erin’s birthday party, we had a massive party with all of our family and friends, a bit of an unveiling of the garden if you will! It still wasn’t 100% finished, but it was so lovely to have everyone in one place and use the garden to its full potential!

Overall, the garden project was a challenge and a half, but I wouldn’t change it for the world! 🙂