Week 22: Phase 4 - 2nd half of the week

 A bit slow this half of the week as I mis-calculated the amount of MOT I needed and there's a 2 day delay in getting it delivered if you order it during the week at least.

So, this bulk bag arrived Friday morning at about 09.30 hrs and the driver said that he wouldn't be able to drop it into the patio area, so had to dump it at the top of the steps. I then spent the next couple of hours shovelling it into buckets and depositing it down in the patio area. This turned out to be a better way of doing it as it meant that I was able to put the MOT in the exact areas and get it up to the level of the markers. Not sure if I've said it before, but many of the videos I've watched have all said it's all about the preparation - get that right and the laying of the slabs will be so much easier and they'll stay down for years. 

I've moved to marking the depth levels with bits of old concrete slab. These are all measured in relation to the string lines and the top of the bit of slab represents how deep the MOT has got to go.

So, once the MOT is down it needs to be the same level as the slab markers. That then leaves a 50mm gap between the level of the MOT and the string. 30mm for the cement mix and 20mm for the thickness of the slabs. 

The lighter MOT on the LH side is todays work in the shot above.

Vice versa in the image above. Most of the work now has less visual impact on the overall look of the area, so I've been putting less images on Instagram. I'm now starting to do smaller 'Snagging' type jobs and some work on the Phase 5 part e.g. the grass area at the top of the garden. I'm also thinking forwards and trying to visualise where things might not be quite right and how to resolve those issues.

Like this image above. Currently this is how the finish will look when the slabs are cemented in place up against the gabions. As you can see there's an ugly gap where you can see the stones and clay the gabions are sat on. So the idea at the moment is that I'll buy some small stones or pea shingle to put in that gap to finish it off.