From calf to beautiful

Many thoughts and reflections have passed over the years that we have owned the house and we have always thought about whether the existing wall has been built correctly. Both wind, water, heat and cold had left their mark on that wall and the slope that might have been good at the time they put up the wall was far from good now. With the land planning that was once done for the house, the owner chose to have straight edges and a diagonally running wall with stairs and surfaces that did not work logically or practically. Over the years, the design has created chaos during weekly maintenance with very special adaptations and hand-wringing to get the grounds nice. In combination with this, standing with a wall that leaned outwards, it was a pretty obvious choice that something had to be done to create order in the chaos.

A rough start with digging a new utility line required that the wall that threatened to cave in needed to be assembled down the middle to make room for the excavator and new lines. In order to find the service line, we needed to do a small archaeological excavation on the plot and what do we not find when we dig. It is probably easier to say what we did not find and that list can be made long, for example we did not find 1) any bearing layer for the wall 2) sporadic drainage layer 3) no sand for either tiles or wall. However, what we found during our excavation was a no two cast concrete stairs one in excellent condition and the other overcast, a non-functioning drainage around the garage, a non-functioning stone chest, a drain hole hidden under the fiber cloth of a size of 1x2 m, drainage hoses and storm water which ends in nothing, a wall with non-functioning ground anchoring (geonet and ground anchor) and a buried car (Volvo PV model older 55-56) with a split window. With this, the summer was done, couldn't find more faults and I can see Brasse Brännström in front of me in Five ants are more than four Elephants (wrong wrong wrong wrong) on ​​every thing we find. We kept digging and one surprise after another popped up. So a project to restore something that was fairly simple now became a project to redo and do it right instead.

With the big plans chalked down on the children's best drawing pads, the work began to raise the walls and restore the plot to the better. The calving wall and its strange design changed from hard and square impractical plot to a lowered and thoughtful front. The newly found staircase had to become a natural element in the environment and was used as a fixed point in life as it had to act as the family's only way up to the house where the mud did not rule. Starting in the upper part of the front, we started by laying out a proper layer bearing layer followed by Megawall to build up the upper boundary of the site. With the landing of the stairs in combination with the house's entrance sticking out like corner posts, we placed stone after stone and the finished result could be seen. The two bottom layers will in the finished position be below the ground and act as an anchor for the wall. The lower wall, which was toppling through the calving, needed to be rebuilt from the ground up. Away with half-assed geonets of 50 cm (they will not hold the wall up) no more wall built on clay soil and shingle it does not hold up to the ground pressure. Up with proper bearing layers where the fiber cloth separates the clay from the bearing layer. With the support bearing in place, we started with the 500kg soil vibrator which flattened the foundation. With a well-flattened foundation, we followed up the masonry construction with one layer where the whole family was involved in the project. With the new design and a stable foundation in place, the new shapes on the lower wall took on a different look than before. No hard square unused surfaces now there will be round shapes followed by paving (which will be laid in 2016 to minimize subsidence). With good tools such as wall cord, rotation laser, virgin, two long iron pipes, level and a good rubber mallet, we started construction with the lower wall.