One of the the things revealed when clearing the garden was this old stone barbeque.

Not in good nick or in an idea place so it had to go. Unlike many other things in this house it was actually really well built – even had foundations!! So it took quite a bit of work with sledge hammer to ‘persuade’ it down.

A few blows later (and some gaffer tape to fix the now broken sledge hammer) and it was no more.

Having cleared the top end of the garden next job was to clear out the end nearest the house. More of the same grind, digging, winching, running from falling trees . . . . .

The final tree was about the largest and was leaning heavily over the neighbours garden. We had some very scarey moments when it started to fall, first as it started swinging around and not down and then as it come within a couple of feet of the conservatory!!

This post is long overdue as we have now been in the new house for 3 months!

Over the next 18 months we (me!) are going to be doing a complete refurbishment of this property, which at the moment is in a very poor condition. As part of this refurb we are doing a loft conversion, garage rebuild & extra floor and a 2 story extension across the back of the house. In addition the place needs to be re-wired, re-plumbed, gutted, painted and furnished – quite a lot of work then!!

We’ve so far done nothing to the inside of the house as we are awaiting drawings and planning permission. Due to the process here (and christmas) I don’t expect that the permissions to be available until February at the earliest . . . . . until then there is one thing that we can get on with – the garden – and what a job that is . . . . . .

When we moved in it was obvious that the back garden had not been touched for years. As you can see from the pictures below it was totally over grown – more like a woodland than a garden.

At the top of the garden was this derelict shed:

So in order to get the garden back to any sort of order the only option has been to strip it out and start again. The hardest part has been to remove several very large trees – quotes from tree surgeons for doing this came in around the £4-6k mark – ouch! So a couple of ropes, some winches and lots of muscle (!!) we’ve cleared most of the garden. Here’s some before and after shots:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

So that’s a lot of logs! With that much foliage and cuttings left after the clearance there’s only one way to get rid of it:

So after 10 weeks of back breaking work that’s where we are (only another 18 months to go! ). Next we’re onto clearing and levelling the ground as it is currently quite a steep slope. We’ll then build some retaining walls and a workshop.