Our garden is a mess. A huge, dirty mess. It was never great, but now it’s just awful.
Because we’ve almost finished taking down our garden wall there are broken bricks and bits of mortar everywhere. Never ones for finishing a project before starting a new one, we could help ourselves and also took down the little raised bed that was in front of our newly painted garden fence.
If you think we’re exaggerating, take a look at this.
Not a pretty sight is it?!
As we finally managed to complete the prep work and foundations for our new raised bed last week, (You can read about it here) we were finally able to start building the wall this weekend.
We mixed the mortar in a wheelbarrow, as we figured it wouldn’t be worth hiring a concrete mixer for building the small wall.
Mixing the mortar by hand worked well, but was quite hard work and very tiring.
Building the first row of brick was definitely the most difficult part. All though our foundation was fairly level, it wasn’t completely even, which made it difficult to get the bricks level.
Even when we finally managed to level a brick, it often wasn’t at the same height as the others so we had to start over again. It all took much, much longer than expected.
After completing the first row things luckily started to speed up and we could actually start to see some progress.
Bricklaying is definitely an underestimated skill! Even though we were constantly using our spirit level, we really struggled getting everything level and our patience was really tested. After attempting to lay the first three bricks, Jan got too annoyed that left me to finish the job!
We got there in the end though and just two short days later (yep, it took us almost two full days to build a tiny wall) this is the result
If you’re wondering why the middle of the wall is looking a bit wonky, it’s because I ran out of mortar for the last three bricks and, as it was already 18:30 on a Sunday evening, just really couldn’t face mixing another batch. It may not be visible from space, but I’m really proud of our little wall. When everything has dried, we’ll finish off the project by rendering and painting the wall.
I can’t wait for the project to finish, not least because the huge pile of earth in the garden will finally disappear again.
What were you up to this weekend? Has anyone else been building walls?
MarieRoxanne says
I like the wonky bricks! There’s character in there!
Hope you had music to go with all that hard work! I wonder what the neighbors think?
1) Oh, how pretty! Maybe I’ll help out.
2) Finally! It’s about time! Hope she’s done soon.
Which one do you think?
If I was closer I would be #1, I would LOVE to help build a brick wall!
Christine says
I’m pretty sure our neighbours think we’re completely mad. There probably used to our never ending DIY by now! One of our neighours has actually been helping us with the other wall, well kind of. We’d been piling up all of the broken bricks before ordering a skip. One day we came out and they’d all vanished. Our amazing neighbour had only gone and taken them all to the tip for us!
Hopefully any imperfections will on this wall be covered up when we render the wall…fingers crossed!
Cx
Stacey says
That took major commitment! Congrats — it looks great. Did the experience make it more or less likely that you will hire someone to do the garden wall?
Christine says
Thanks Stacey! I haven’t stopped thinking about the big garden wall. We’re really unsure what to do now, especially as bricklaying is much harder than I’d have liked. I’ve worked out, that it would take me about 16 days to build the wall if I’m as slow as I was on this wall! Having said that, we could save a lot of cash by doing it ourselves – although, I’m pretty sure the saved cash would have to pay for a holiday so that I can recover from the ordeal! ;-)
Cx
Magali@TheLittleWhiteHouse says
I’m very impressed! I’ve busy all weekend with a little project than has nothing to do with the house, but was somehow triggered by the house!
Christine says
Oh, what was it?! It’s nice to do something non-house related every now and then!
Cx
Robert Kinsgnorth says
HI there,
I’m about to build something similar to your raised bed. I was wondering how the render is looking these days? Did it stand the test of time?
Thanks for the inspiration
Robert :)
Christine says
Yes and no. I totally admit that it’s not a project that we ever completely finished! Ups! Essentially the wall worked well, but I’d definitely recommend using a proper outdoor render that’s already coloured. We followed a guide from a gardening magazine for the wall but were later also told that we should have lined the walls so that the moisture doesn’t penetrate through them and make the render wet. I’m not sure how important this is, but it’s something that probably is a good idea.
Hope that helps!
Cx