They say that you need to build the same house three times before you learn enough to iron out all the mistakes.
More than once through the build, I’ve cursed myself for not having thought of something earlier or made a slightly different decision.
One such time was the 900mm offset from our southern side boundary – the minimum requirement in our local council area. This was subject subject of my earlier post “A lesson learned”.
Long story short: 900mm was absolutely fine in theory as a side access pathway for the garbage binds etc until you took into account the fact that the gas meter takes up around 200mm, leaving little room left for a retaining wall and my big wheelie bins.
Initially I had wanted concrete blocks for that retaining wall. It seemed a more refined materials than simply timber sleepers. The downside of the blocks was that they were 200mm thick – something I really couldn’t afford.
My landscaper suggested concrete sleepers after thinking through the problem, and my visual preferences.
Coming in at only 50mm thick, these concrete sleepers have been a Godsend, transforming the narrow pathway from this:
To this:
And could this newly landscaped pathway fit the bigger size wheelie bin too?
By a hairs breadth, it can!
This is about as good an example as any of my good luck, rather than good planning 😀
Eden Brae Waldorf 50 