ᐅ House Photos Discussion Corner – Share Your Home Pictures!

motorradsilke schrieb:

Our outdoor area, at least around the house, is now finished. We did everything ourselves.
My son installed the curbstones, we bought gravel for splash protection from a company in the next town, transported it with a trailer and spread it out; we paved it together.
Most of the bushes were purchased cheaply through classified ads, some even given for free. The bamboo was dug up from our own hedge, and I had to buy the Photinia at the hardware store.
We got the granite stones for the platform and flower beds through classified ads, and the ones for the pathway were free.
We installed the chain-link fence and the small gate ourselves.
Today, a trailer load of topsoil will be spread on the path outside the property and grass will be sown.
The more difficult part was that our construction access road was located in this area, and the concrete recycling material that the main contractor had dumped had to be removed, at least partially. A digger would have been great 😉. At least we were able to get rid of it at a company in the neighboring town.
In total, we moved, transported, and spread about 15 metric tons of material.

All in all, the whole project cost us less than 1000 €.

And we like it.

Our outdoor area seems to be taking care of itself... View from the terrace 😎

Neubau2022 schrieb:

Our outdoor area seems to be taking care of itself... View from the terrace 😎

I see you also have a big pile of soil. What are you planning to do with it? It’s still a bit of a concern for me, although my husband thinks the soil could be used to level the site and replace some of the compaction material in front of and around the house.

Snowy36 schrieb:

In our case, the entire boundary with the eastern neighbor from the garage to the end of the property had to be lined with L-shaped retaining wall blocks because we filled up to street level and the neighbor did not... but we still wanted to have level access into the house... whatever... different approaches for different people...

But this is exactly the point. Why do you always have to put a retaining structure along the boundary instead of somewhere in between, and why L-shaped blocks specifically? Is it just because only the neighbor sees the ugly concrete?
We also want level access into the house, so I need to create a slope in front of the house. That means a low wall about knee-high will be installed to create the required depth. It will be 2–3 rows of 40x20x20 cm (16x8x8 inches) blocks, all easily doable as a DIY project. We don’t need to hijack this thread now, I’m sure I’ll post more once the garden is in progress. But I’m making sure to plan everything as suitable for DIY work instead of just dumping 500-kilogram (1,100-pound) L-shaped blocks there.

Neubau2022 schrieb:

Our landscaping seems to be taking care of itself... View from the terrace 😎

Did you sow anything there?

Pinkiponk schrieb:

I’m still a bit concerned, although my husband thinks the soil could be used to level the plot and replace the compaction material in front of and around the house.

If your soil compacts well, no problem. And if you need to fill areas where some settling is not a concern, that’s fine too.

WilderSueden schrieb:

Did you plant anything there?

No, completely natural. We haven’t worked on the plot at all yet 😎

Pinkiponk schrieb:

I see you also have a large pile of excavated soil. What are you planning to do with it? It still worries me a bit, although my husband thinks the soil could be used for leveling the plot and replace the compacted material in front of and around the house.

Our topsoil is not suitable for compaction. However, since we won’t be compacting everything, it will be spread out eventually.

Neubau2022 schrieb:

No, all natural. We haven’t worked on the plot at all yet 😎

Nice. My pile of soil looks similar, but I also spread a cover crop mix on it. At first, I thought it was just birdseed, but then something actually sprouted 🙂