A big project can create a big mess.

Sincere appreciation for your story and pictures. In America, this is what we would call a "massive" residential remodel. The design and execution are amazing. The stone façade is exquisite. We are looking forward to more pics.

One of the most awesome threads on Pelican! Love the build and can’t wait to see what the layout looks like inside! My updates?

Superman and luke, thanks for the comments, very much appreciated

Apologies for lack of posts but it's been a bit full on since my last update. My hernia op/recovery couldn't have gone better but this paled into insignificance a week later when our youngest was admitted into hospital for brain surgery :(

Modern medicine is indeed a miracle :cool:, Pleased to report all is good and everything is back to normal, hopefully our new normal will stay boring!

Over the last few weekends on the rare occasion when it hasn't rained continuously all day Mrs Ahab and I have direct our energy towards our build.

Progress on the house part has halted as our builder is now waiting for me to dig and pour a small footing so he can build a garage opening pillar.

To give ourselves a much needed rest from building work we've decided to spend time giving our garden some much needed love so we can hopefully enjoy it next summer.

At the beginning it looked like this
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1561308669.jpg

After lots of overflow dumping of building material it looked like this
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1561308769.jpg

After moving off the tons and tons of walling/building stone that we could physically lift ourselves, lots of weeding and a small start on the levelling it now looks like this
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1561308897.jpg

I'm waiting for delivery of a heavy duty sack truck which should make light work of moving the bigger 100-200lb stones and then let the lawn levelling begin!

What is a 'sack truck' in US English, please?

Edit: nevermind, I think we call it a Dolly or Hand Truck...


Beautiful job, Cap'n.

Glad the medical stuff worked out OK.

thanks tcar, a UK sack truck is one of these......

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1561319508.jpg

Captain, thoughts for full and rapid recovery for you and your child.

thanks, astrochex

we are all well now and Mrs Ahab is our rock!

Hoping for a rapid recovery sir, very much enjoying your thread.

Captain you take care of yourself and your family , the construction can wait . It really looks great .

Those pics of the yard really show what a monumental effort your project has been.

I love the look of the back side of the building, the dormer window structure tying into the break in the wall add nice character to that side.

The window and skylights bring so much light inside too.

So glad to hear that you and your son are fixed up and on the mend!

Congrats on the win with Jag!

Cheers Richard

Still grateful for including us in your personal community and now, wishing you just what you said. A boring new normal. Very glad to hear of your offspring's recovery and prognosis.

I would say that virtually every picture of your project has "hernia" written all over it. If we get a chance to meet, I won't arm wrestle with you.

Yes, a proper garden. With a place this size, some might have used the space differently. I applaud your decision, Sir.

thanks for the kind wishes and pleased to say all is boring, long may it continue

Superman, would love to know how some might have used the space differently

Mrs Ahab and I have managed to spend a few weekend afternoons gardening

Finished moving the large stone pieces, was going well until my dolly couldn't handle our work rate, meant to be rated for 200kgs/440kgs but one wheel is buckled and a tyre blew, wished I'd spent more than $50 :rolleyes: My wheel barrow is just about worn out too, will make sure this time I buy best :D

First job was a rough level, wheel barrowed tons of soil towards the lowest end of the garden at the far left hand corner. Thought we might have way too much soil, now thinking we might just have enough

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1563141311.jpg

Dug up the whole area up by hand with a garden spade, digging by hand is good for the soul but damn it's hard work. Needed to loosen up the ground to make raking easier and to get some air into the soil, will add some fertilizer closer to when we turf

Then lots of raking, picking out stones and tons more shoveling of soil to level up the ground by eye

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1563141511.jpg

My latest gadget is a rotary laser level, not sure how I managed to get through life without one. Works great, can cover the whole garden but just not powerful enough to use in full daylight. A quick check this evening and it's all pretty good, within an inch or so of being flat which will do for now.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1563141589.jpg

My weeding stool is a late 90's forged magnesium BBS Benetton F1 rear wheel :cool:, was my garden hose reel but also makes a comfy perch to sit on

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1563141783.jpg

Mrs Ahab is nearly finished the boundary wall stonework, had to lift up the working platform for her as she couldn't reach the top :D

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1563141874.jpg

If anyone has any top turfing tips they'd like to share then please post em up

Wonderful thread

Great update. Is the garden graded to enable drainage?

I am going to be laughing for a long time about your weeding stool. That is a repurposing I would guess BBS never anticipated! Beautiful item.

My first suggestion would be to rent some power equipment to make your job easier and faster. You do a lot of things by hand, that’s admirable, but give yourself a bit of a break.

I don’t know how much rainfall you get there, nor do I know what the composition of your soil is, but you should allow for drainage if you are prone to getting large amounts of rainfall in a short period of time. If your soil has a lot of clay in it, I’d recommend that you consider mixing some sand and organic matter into it. If nothing else, rent a Rototiller and loosen up the top 6 or 8 inches. A power rake would make quick work of leveling the area up again. When it comes time for the sod, buy freshly cut sod and place it. Don’t be tempted to try to grow a lawn from seed. Install the individual rolls of sod with tight joints, roll it to ensure good contact with the soil and fertilize and water appropriately.

I heart Mrs. Ahab!

Thanks javadog, power equipment is a great time/body saver but I treat my garden/building work as an alternative to a good gym work out so quite enjoy the hard labour

Drainage is pretty good, never had flooding and I've built drain holes into the retaining wall to the driveway

Lawn will be from sod or as we call it turf, plan to lay it early Sept when its a bit cooler and less hot. Also have a lot of hard landscaping to do before then too.

Apologies for lack of updates, work, Mrs Ahab keeping the kids amused during summer holidays and family holiday cruise along the Norwegian fjords has slowed progress

First up is the lawn, leveling all done, no turf yet but needs another round of weeding. Think I've made some more work for myself as we've decide we need another small patio in the far right rear corner of the garden, may put the BBQ there or might even build a stone pizza oven

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1567969241.jpg

In anticipation of our builder returning in a few weeks :cool: we needed to clear some working space for him to finish the rear garage opening stonework. Mrs Ahab and I spent a morning doing some heavy moving of the steel beams and 9" x 9" x 22ft long oak beam, rollers and levers are your friend!

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1567969340.jpg

Don't think I've posted this up but here are the beams when Mrs Ahab and I put them on the trailer last autumn. Definitely pushed the overhang too far as we had a harsh lesson in weight distribution about 0.5 mile from home with an almighty tank slapper :eek: luckily we didn't end up in a hedge. New underpants were required before unloading

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1567969493.jpg

Mrs Ahab has been putting the finishing touches on her driveway wall, we weren't sure how best to top the wall off. Custom cut new stone would have looked good but at $3k was just too expensive so we reduced our stone pile and matched the style of the boundary wall. We will plant a Yew hedge just behind it so the two should work well together

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1567969800.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1567969875.jpg

Biggest excitement :rolleyes: since the last update was delivery of a new heating oil tank. 1150 ltrs/303 US Gal capacity plastic bunded (twin walled) construction with an additional 30 min fire barrier housing. Oil sounds a bit primitive for heating but we are not near a gas line, electric is far more expensive, roof pitch is too steep for solar and no access for a deep bore heat bump, good old fossil fuel it is.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1567969944.jpg

Getting the truck into our next door neighbor's driveway was quite tight fit. Mrs Ahab was site manager while I was at work and as expected everything went smoothly

Tank is a big, ugly eyesore so only one thing to do but to hide it so I spent a couple of weekends building yet another wall using left over stone. It won't fall down time anytime soon as it's 30" thick. As Mrs Ahab is our stone walling expert the pressure was on for me not to make a mess of it, I'm quite pleased with how it turned out

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1567970238.jpg

Beautiful work, sir. Cheers to you and Mrs. Ahab!

After I spent the weekend cutting/splitting 2 cords of Ash firewood, I can't imagine how your muscles must feel after an active weekend hauling stone, and beams, and moving dirt.

I commend you and the Mrs. for keeping at it...good work !

You and Mrs A are incredibly impressive!

Totally in awe here. That looks so warm and cozy even as is.

Ahoy Ahab - did Harry (Harry's Garage ) Metcalf capture a bit of your build in his Miura video??? It's a great video, but the construction project can be seen just after the 13 minute mark.


<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XGNHVYU0Xok" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>


Perhaps "they all look alike" but dayum....

If not, sorry for the hijack. Carry on!

:D no, sorry not my build project but damn daepp that is top detective work :cool:

At 17.40 he is driving through Burford which is a beautiful Cotswold town, well worth visiting if in the area. We are only about 30 mins north

I like that guy's YouTube channel but just stumbled across that site. Seemed like waaaayyyyyy too much of a coincidence, but I had to ask!

Thanks again for the kind words, it really does help to spur us along :cool:

This new patio area took an afternoon to do, only a small patio 6.5 ft square, enough for a couple of chairs and table, perfect position to relax, enjoy a Pimm's and admire what we've done (one day, one day)

Shuttering made out of left over joists, used a base of left over walling stone and then wheel barrowed around 12 loads of concrete

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1569101468.jpg

Let it a week to set and knocked the shuttering off, now left with a sturdy base to lay stone flagstones on, won't be finished until after the garden stairs as I want to use the best flagstones on this first

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1569101541.jpg

I find concreting a total body workout, easily the most physically demanding work I've done on this build, seems to sap my strength/stamina more than any of the other trades

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1569101624.jpg

Mrs Ahab has been busy leveling the lawn area and raking out stones, also finished off her garden wall building a mortar cap on top of inner stone wall, she used 'sharp sand' which is much coarser/more durable than the finer sand we used for building the stone walls

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1569101718.jpg

As progress this year has slowed considerably :( due to my work commitments I'm in the process of making changes. Easier, cheaper, quicker would be to just pay tradesmen to finish it off but easy is boring and not satisfying :D

Looks great, Captain.

Thank-you so much for the epic virtual tour.

Thanks for the update. Keep up the fight, almost there.

Wonderful

thanks for the kind comments, Paul, VV and Sooner or later

Was hoping for a big win and reveal of the lawn this update, we were all booked and ready to take delivery of 100m2/1000ft2 of turf or as you guys call is 'sod' (a very different meaning in English ;)) even took an afternoon off for one last session of leveling, but.....

My turf guy called the day before and advised due to the heavy rain we've had he'd recommend leaving it for next weekend as the turf was a bit fragile due to being so wet :(

You'll have to use your imagination to picture what the lawn will look like or maybe someone can Photoshop all the brown soil to a lush green lawn

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1569771492.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1569771596.jpg

After finishing my wall to hide the oil tank part of the old wall was bothering me as it wasn't now as tall as the new section of wall

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1569771700.jpg

Only one way to fix it and yep, more wall building to blend new into old or old into new :confused:, give it a winter of moss growth and no one will ever know ;)

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1569772328.jpg

Finished the wall off with a cement cap to weather proof it, job done and a minor win to me.

I let my OCD get the better of me on this wall as I'd planned to use concrete blocks on the rear face. No one would ever see it but in the end I just couldn't so did the right thing and used up some more stone :D

Heating oil tank has a 30 min fire barrier external cladding, required by building regulations as it is closer than the minimum allowed distance to the roof eaves.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1569771989.jpg

So much goodness.

You need to do some work on the out of round wheels in the window. :)

That was a bit of South American street art I helped myself from the dumpster at work

On one wanted it so I took it for the plywood :cool:

This build thread is amazing.
Great work!
The pure physicality of it would kill me.

I'm starting to picture your final plan and it will be amazing!

Thanks Scott and Rod

Early this morning the turf fairy left this pile on our drive, 2 pallets or 100 rolls or 100m2 or 1000ft2 of green lushiness

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1570280081.jpg

A sprinkle of fertilizer and one last rake the lawn looked like this

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1570279612.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1570279762.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1570279892.jpg

Mrs Ahab, myself and Ahab Jr (yep, we used child labour on this job :D) all found it a very satisfying and easy job to do, only took 3hrs from start to finish, done and dusted in time for lunch :cool:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1570280489.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1570280773.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1570280919.jpg

It really has made the garden look larger and as we are in England we booked in advance heavy rain for late tonight

Gorgeous.

Instant lawn!

Satisfying part of the job.

Looks great!

Looks Great!

Glad to see some progress and updates.