16th October 2022 - The Terrace Arrives (Unfinished)
Finally finished preparing the space for the terrace. The soil has been shored up to stop it from falling into the hole. We’ve got the Workmate out to assist with cutting wood for the stakes (piles) and we have the pallet ready to test everything out as we go along… make sure what we are creating actually works.
Here is the second picture, it looks like four stakes are in the ground, courtesy of the Sledgy. The first pallet then is sitting atop those stakes and just two more to go! … What Chris has done here is drive in a wide-ish stake where the pallets are next to each other, such that we only need one stake each side to provide support for two pallets. So 4 stakes on each side, a total of 8.
In the 3rd picture you can see the size of stake wood we are using. It should last a long time, especially as the amount of water going under the terrace should be minimal, so not that much rotting going on.
In the 4th picture the basics of the terrace are now in place. 3 uniform pallets, all at the same height, ready for positioning of the decking surrounds, batons and then the decking to screw down onto that… Plenty of other things to be getting on with now though so to prevent soil from getting underneath the terrace, we are going to use pallet panels screwed to the stakes and pallets to do that.
Another view, from the other side. There is no black plastic down under the terrace as yet. We will do that part before putting the side panels on, but we are going away for a couple of weeks or so, and may just run out of time now.
So a panorama view of the top section of the plot and you can really start to see how the plot will look in due course. We are miles away from finishing, but at this time in the Autumn, when plants are finishing off and there is little in the way of propagation, this is a great time for construction work and repairs to take place.
In the last picture a view from the top of the plot (roadside). The Sledgy has proved a real asset doing this task. Would have been virtually impossible to create this solid pile / stake type support without it. You can also see with the two long bits of wood in front of the white door the height that the wood covering the terrace and the two cold frames is going to be. Shaping up well and looking forward to completing this… but for now, we are off to Bulgaria and then Hungary for a little R&R.
