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Hi all
We are at it again with the 3rd installment / project of our home in Rowville. This project was all about making the house look inviting for when we came home and for when we had visitors. To this day we are maturing the plants that are now in the ground but from below you will get a sense of the work it took to get it to that stage!
Keeping the same format as my other posts below is the canvas that we started off with after the front yard renovation. the aim was to dress up the car port area and provide a wider walkway to the front door.
Step 1 - Mark up and string line the width of the new path and remove the old path by hand. Some of these pieces were 200mm thick. This took me around half a day to cut out and half a day to clear the area.
Step 2 - Ensure that all the levels were right and ready for concreting. We got an excavater in for the main driveway to be dug 100mm down and cleared the new pathway by hand.
Step 3 - Prep the areas for concreting. more time was required on the driveway and you have to use rebar to accommodate for the weight of the car(s). The pathway not so much. We decided to use exposed aggregate for the driveway and crazy paving for the pathway.
Step 4 - Tiling of the crazy paving. This isn' the most fun job but is probably the one you want to get right. We laid out all the crazy paving like a puzzle to cover the area. After that it's a case of cutting and laying the pieces down. The aim isn't to make it look perfect - it's called crazy paving for a reason 
Once grouted it comes up a treat!
Step 5 - Finally i added some lights all the way around the perimeter of the driveway which were pinned into the ground and protected by all weather insulation (very important!). Finally I wasn't happy with the rockery to the right of the pathway so decided to make a raised flower bed out of colorbond keeping the same look and feel as the fence.
Then it was a matter of ordering 2 tonnes of pebbles to finish of the edging and the flower bed.
The end result meant that we took the bare space out front to an ample two car driveway complete with 700mm border with 10 lights triggered by a sensor.
The old and dated pathway went from 700mm to 2 metres wide with a 1 x 4 metre raised flower bed. Unfortunately i had to kill the 6 yuccas as they would eventually destroy the paving. We are currently nursing 6 knee high plants to fill the deliberate holes.
Somethings I learnt along the way:
- Always keep thinking about what you want and don't be afraid to make changes and adapt
- Crazy paving is easy to lay if you remeber you are not dealing with accurate square tiles
- It's a pian to grout though and can be time consuming
- A sledge hammer and pickaxe can make short work of an old driveway
- Disposing of rubble each week in the normal bins isn't recommneed - just get a skip!
Thnaks for reading
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