Once the exterior of the house was finally painted and complete, we had a new deck attached to the front. Originally we thought that we could just repair the porch that was there. But upon closer inspection, it was deemed unsafe, and we decided that while we were at it, we would increase the footprint. That done, we turned our attention to the surrounding garden and the garden path leading to the house.
There was the remnants of a path, long neglected and overgrown. We dug up the old stone, and scavenged more stone from other parts of the property, and began to put together the puzzle. The house is on a hill, so periodically we had to incorporate a step into the design.
We began at the top step, setting two huge pieces of rock in place, making sure that we left no cavities beneath where future bee colonies may want to set up home.
Then we started working our way down the hill, trying to add some flow and movement and fitting each piece of rock together in the best formation. We used a powdered cement type thing between the rock, which was afterwards lightly misted with water. It then solidified. We had originally thought of just letting the grass grow between the stones, but this looks so much better and will be much easier to maintain. We planted grass seed all along the outside of the path and graded it so that water would run off. The grass is pretty much grown there now.
We began working our way down the slope.
Once we were about half way down, we switched direction and began at the bottom, working our way up the hill. It was still just a matter of placing the steps first, grading the slope, and fitting in the correct stone. There were times when we thought we might run out of rock before we ran out of slope, but it all worked out in the end.
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| The top and the bottom coming together. |
The path, the new deck and the gardens going in.
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Close up of stone work! |
We are off on holidays for a month. I have a difficult time leaving but I enjoy being gone!! And I will try to update more often when back.
