SHED STEP

It’s all well and good having a smart shed in the bottom corner of the garden but not if you have to squelch through a quagmire of mud to get into it.  What’s lacking is a touch of landscaping in front, a nice paved area, bit of decking or something solid that you can use as a natural step up into the building.

 

Exterior swamp not required

There’s also tortoise proofing of garden to consider.  Shelby’s a bit of a bugger when it comes to escaping from her outdoor enclosures and the last thing we want is for her to be wedged under a large wooden shed or camouflaged deep in the back borders like a torti-commando hiding from Russian snipers where she can’t be found.

 

That wall's not going to keep me in

How we finish off the front of the shed needs to provide a suitable escape proof perimeter as well as an aesthetically pleasing edge for the back flower borders.  Rather than use a raised wooden deck which would need continual maintenance, we’re going to make a more solid tiled step using the leftover ceramic tiles from a past bathroom refurb.

 

Recycling leftover tiles

The other half’s face is a picture as I outline this latest landscaping idea.  I think he hates bricklaying more than he hates dithering numpties in supermarkets.  Yes, I know we said you’d never have to lay another brick again but well, this is bricklaying in the same way as Putin’s war ‘isn’t a war’ in the Ukraine.  I’m calling it a Special Landscaping Operation. 

 

Darling, I've had an idea ...

This is definitely the last time ...

This Special Landscaping Operation or SLO will begin with a small two course wall of bricks spanning out from the front edge of the shed’s concrete base. 

 

This is the general plan

The middle part of this brick lined enclosure is to be dug out, levelled off and filled with concrete to create a solid platform that will then be tiled over.  

From the lawn, a low red brick border will be visible at the front and at the side, the brick border will morph into a low retaining wall to replace the rotting picket fence type borders currently in situ.

 

Rotting picket walls to be replaced with a low brick one

The low retaining wall should enable us to raise the level of the soil at the back which will come in dead handy once the builders start digging up the lawn to build a new soakaway as there’ll be plenty of displaced earth to find a home for.  At the same time, the existing flower border is being widened to provide lots more room for plants and shrubs – my future rhododendron garden as it’s a nice part shady area.

The SLO’s off to a good start, the first course of bricks laid and a second course added this weekend which is now drying out.

 

First course of bricks is laid

Followed by a second one to form the edge of our step

With a nice long Easter weekend coming up, I’m praying for sunshine but I think the other half’s sent a petition to the Rain God for a deluge so he won’t have to mix up a ton of concrete to make the tile base.

That Shelby is soooo naughty - unlike me