Manet

The house was mid-renovation when we arrived, scaffolding still up, and the garden behind it was severely overgrown and had not been maintained.

The paving against the house had cracked and lifted. The steps had moved enough to be uneven underfoot. Levels that once worked were badly out, and water had started collecting where it should have been running away.

The customer wanted the garden taken back to bare ground before the new design went in. The old, overgrown pergola was dug out entirely, and the new path and paved base now sit where it stood. The customer had a design drawn up by their own designer. Our job was to build it, and to get right the parts a drawing cannot specify.

Nothing was laid for the first several weeks.

The old surfaces came up, the ground was dug out to depth to correct levels that were badly out, and the whole area was graded and compacted before any stone arrived on site. Levels were set to carry water away from the building rather than towards it, and the falls were worked out across the full run rather than section by section.

This is the part that decides whether paving is still flat in fifteen years. It is also the part that will be invisible the day the job finishes, which is exactly why it is worth doing slowly.

The steps were rebuilt from nothing.

Concrete formed and levelled first, set out so that every riser would finish at precisely the same height once the stone went on. A step that varies by even ten millimetres is a step people catch their foot on, and getting them consistent across a change in level is a groundwork problem before it is a stonework one.

The limestone was laid over the top afterwards, cut and bedded so the nosings line through.

Sinai Pearl limestone, laid on a full mortar bed.

It runs from the house along the length of the garden, each slab fully bedded rather than set on mortar spots, which is the difference between paving that stays where it was laid and paving that rocks and lifts after a few winters.

The joints were left and finished only once the stone had settled. It takes longer and it is the reason they look like this rather than cracking out in the first frost.

There is plenty still to come. The steps and the paving are complete and will not be touched again.

Planting has not gone back in, the lawn needs reinstating where the machines have been, the terrace still needs finishing properly, a water feature is going in, lighting is being run, and a pergola goes up in the new year.

We will add the rest here as it finishes.