building a retaining garden wall and patio for novice

Hi I need to excavate a path around my garage (current ground level above damproofing and damp running in garage, build a retaining garden wall (about 1 foot at the lowest and 2 at the highest) and small patio area above wall and blockpave the path, I've done a a bit of googling and see you can buy retaining wall kits of interlocking stone which look interesting. I am a lady in my thirties with NO building experience whatsoever! I can get some muscle but will have to take the lead in what goes where and how we do things all from internet research. Should I attempt this as a DIY project or is this madness and should I call in the landscapers!!

Would welcome anyone's thoughts has anyone attempted anything similar. Cheers EGW

 

hi Ellie

i would say you would never know till you try it!!

i was in my thirties when i completly renovated a house including block work, stud walls and plastering and tilling both walls and floors, when i said i was going to do the work my self you should have heard every one laugh ! but i did it!! i have never had such a sense of pride as i did on the day the family moved in to our home maybe i should put up some pictures lol
i guess what i am saying is if you want to try to do it well you go girl !!!
nothing ventured nothing gained :D

give Ziggy :D a shout as he seems to be a man who knows and gives good advice

currently i am laying footings and a course of block work for a green house and i have just finished laying a concret slab :WINK1: while the hubby made cups of tea !

 

thanks Kaz for the vote of confidence and well done on your achievements. my hubby will help with the graft but really isn't practical and could not be trusted to do the project at all, you should see some of his attempts at flat pack furniture :D

I think I'll get a couple of landscapers/builders out to quote, find out how they would do it/what they suggest then take a view on whether I could do it myself and cost up the material. I've also a builder in the village who I think would give me some free advice. I could plan the project over winter and start in spring. (have a whole house to decorate over winter!), could probably rope in Dad or Father in Law to help under sufferance! Thanks again x

 

somethig I see done here in the UK, is that many/most patios are made of wood decking

in south africa, I never ever saw decking (except sometimes surrounding an outdoor jacuzzi)

most patios were concrete, covered in Italian tiles (special outdoor non-slip... the same ones used to surround swimmingpools)

similar to this photo:
http://www.ukhomeideas.co.uk/images/beltrami/natural-grey.jpg

some used pebble pave (small pebbles mixed with a strong glue that was spread over concrete), but the italian tiles are nicer IMHO

 

I built my own raised patio all by myself.

Ok, fair enough, I'm a bloke so I'm magically supposed to be able to do these things, but it was the first time I'd built anything.

It has been there a few months now and hasn't fallen down.

Rather than using ordinary bricks, which seemed to me like a lot of fiddly work, I used breeze blocks. I was inspired by my sons lego sets. Big lego for big things, little lego for little things. The patio is quite big (not for a patio, but bigger than me), so I used the big lego, ie breeze blocks.

I made it quarter circle to fit in the corner.

It goes without saying that I first made a half baked attempt and leveling the ground. I then knocked a small wooden stake into the ground in the corner and tied a length of rope to it. I used this rope contraption as a giant compass, and holding the rope and the spade together, I scratched out a curved line.

I didn't lay a foundation for my breeze block retaining wall for a number of reasons. 1) I'm lazy, 2) I figured the ground was firm enough considering it wouldn't have to bear much load and 3) because I'm impatient, if I don't see rapid progress I lose interest and then have the wife on my case for leaving half finished projects.

I did take extra care to level the ground along the line where the breeze blocks would go, and then I set them in place without mortar at this point, just to see what it looked like and to make sure I'd got the ground flat enough.

A few minor adjustments here and there and I was ready to stick it together.

I should say at this point, I deviated slightly from the perfect curve I'd marked. This was deliberate. When it was right (and I checked it numerous times) all who looked at it in place agreed that it looked wonky. It must have been an optical illusion caused by the fact that the fence doesn't run at exactly 90 degrees from the house wall. So to tackle this wonky illusion problem, I adjusted the bricks a bit by eye.

Satisfied that it looked ok, I then mixed up some mortar and stuck it all together.

Next, I filled in the cavity with rubble, and a layer of mud (because I had planned to plant into it, but changed my mind.

Next, I scraped half the mud back out again so I could lay stones on the top. Getting it perfectly flat and level was a bit fiddly and took some time, but I got there. Altogether, that bit probably took about 6 hours, but I did it in bits and pieces after work so it took several days.

I mixed up a dry mix of sand and cement, and spread it evenly over the surface, then almost certainly doing it wrong, I made some mortar and dolloped it on top of that before pushing each stone in place.

Finally, I mixed up some dry mix and used the sweeping brush to sweep it into the gaps between stones, and then poured water onto it to wash it in. I did this over several days allowing each lot to dry a bit in between.

Oh, and proper finally, I made one more lot of dry mix, with the intention of sweeping it all over to go into any remaining gaps. Except it didn't manage to stay as dry mix, because literally as soon as I'd mixed the sand and cement together under a clear blue sky with the evening sun on my face, clouds appeared from nowhere and it chucked it down, so I had to frantically sweep wet cement all over the patio and clean it all off before it stuck to the surface of the stones.

Since all this happened, lots of people have walked on it, seemingly unperturbed by the knowledge that it was built by me, and it hasn't collapsed yet.

The moral of this little tale, it can be done by one person with no building experience, although it probably shouldn't be done exactly the way I did it.

 

[QUOuuTE=Elliegreenwelly;459338]thanks Kaz for the vote of confidence and well done on your achievements. my hubby will help with the graft but really isn't practical and could not be trusted to do the project at all, you should see some of his attempts at flat pack furniture :D


Another one of us with a Destroy It Yourself Hubby!!!!!

 

Thanks so much everyone for your replies, I think we'll definitely give it a go in the spring should save us quite a bit on labour.

From what you've said . what I'm most worried about is not building the wall per se or layinmg the patio (which sounds doable) but digging up around the stone garage where the earth is too high and ensuring drainage and the right gradient so that water drains away from the garage rather than into it. anyone with any tips on this? I might take a picture later as it's probably hard to visualise x

 

hi
i would ask Ziggy start a new thread with ziggy named in the title at least that is what i did, he is busy but as you say you wont be doing it till spring there is plenty of time to plan, maybe you could upload a picture to so that he can see what / where you want to do

:D Ziggy if you read this

 

Hi ellie
I am sure you can build a wall ! Like everything planning and prep is half the job . Luckily there is lots of info and videos on the internet on bricklaying to gen up on. Also a few tools to make it easier like the Bricky below , lots of second hand ones on Ebay. I have never used one, but have just built a small wall and it took me ages keeping it level and clean , so it may be worth it for a bigger job. Mixing mortar is hard work so hiring a mixer may be worthwhile.

Bricky Wall Building Tool

 

Thanks harry for the link, may invest if I go for it, I've already looked and can hire a compactor and mixer for about £40 for a weekend so would definately do that. I'm thinking more and more that this is possible! Now just to figure out how on earth I'll find the time to do it with a two year old in tow:D!

 

oh the 2 year old is easy you give them some small brick pieces and a pile of sand and water and tell them you need them to help make a wall on the other side of where you are, or tell tell to help fill buckets of sand ... from my experience with children ( i work with them, have had four and now have 4 granbabies who love to help ) they will either love helping or more likely they will soon get bored and move on to their toys, i have done every diy job you can think of and have always had a little helper ! lol