When dreams come true

When we found our dream house two and a half years ago, we realized that the house was fantastic, the location was like a dream, but that the garden left a lot to be desired. Actually, it was strange. Because it turned out that the house was one of the oldest in the area and had once been an old merchant garden. But nothing can be seen from that. Not a tree remains and we were also told that the previous owners even bulldozed away and sold the fine soil that once existed.
For two years we thought, dreamed and planned how we could best make our front a point of pride. My husband Björn hated the gravel in front of the house, "it just has to go at all costs, he muttered" and the Siberian pea bushes that formed the hedge that ran along the house sang the last verse.
The driveway was in front of the house and consisted of gravel that weeds loved to grow in. Although there is a garage behind the house, the gravel lot in front of the house served as parking. We wanted to turn this front into a piece of jewelry. We wanted to open the gate to our home and feel love for the place we chose to live in. But also coming from inside the house, opening the front door, stepping out and feeling "wow, here we live!".

At the southeast end of the lot was a corner that just needed work and could not be used for anything. No one noticed it, even though that part of the garden borders the road, and the corner was the most troublesome. We started putting the puzzle together by assuming that that surface would be our new car park.
Big visions sometimes take time . Therefore, it took two and a half years before we thought clearly. And yes, I got pregnant too, so all of a sudden things started to burn a little and we got the last push to get started. We thought that if we don't do this before the baby arrives, it will never happen...
With some naive ideas about how long it would take, and perhaps an overconfidence in ourselves, we set off with rocket speed. It would just be finished before the baby arrived! We are both used to setting our goals high – if you aim for the sky, you will reach the treetops anyway!
Now it was time to speed up! With a chugging baby belly and both with full calendars, I (as usual) set My up with too many things to catch up on each day. The old hedge had to be removed first. One late evening in April we cut it down. It was easy. It was in such bad shape that it was easier than we thought. It was a good start, something that went faster than we thought.

The May Day bonfire in our area got extra crackling this year, because a whole hedge was there. Namely spring. It was completely dark when the last rice was placed on the pile. We barely made it there. But the hedge was gone in time for the excavator's arrival the next morning.
Our favorite digger Roland came and helped excavate all the material on the plot. He loves driving an excavator! I love people who love, who have a passion in life, whatever it is and Roland, he loves his excavator! He is a rock. He doesn't even want coffee, he just works! About 150 tons of material was left for disposal and the soil that could be reused was placed on another part of the plot.

The parking lot was thus moved to the previously unusable end of the lot . When the digger Roland excavated the site for the new parking lot and the walkway up from it, we laid fiber cloth. After that, we had timed it with the Stone Company that the stone crusher, stone flour and the rest of the material would arrive. Before that, we had compared stones and materials with a bunch of different companies and concluded that Stenbolaget had everything we wanted and at good prices. In addition, the staff was incredibly helpful and pleasant with all our two thousand questions. Many thanks for that! A large part of the stone crusher could be tipped by the truck directly onto the future parking lot from the street, but we had to put a large part near the road in front of the house. About 15 cm of crushed rock was placed in the parking lot, which Roland helped to pull out, then Björn drove with the soil vibrator that we had rented.

We probably did not expect that it would take such a long time with the sub-work. Excavate and then measure extremely carefully where A and O. A good sub-work was crucial for the rest to be good. It felt like we worked for weeks without anything happening, because all you could see was a large crater. Yes, before we laid the first stone, it looked like it was standing still!

Time to measure out the final surface. But how the hell do you measure an exact 90-degree corner? Björn preferred the Pythagorean theorem but I have to SEE what I'm doing. Two IKEA tables had to become a gigantic angle hook! All means are allowed as long as it looks nice!
Björn was extremely careful with the case, so that no rainwater would collect in any involuntary corner of the parking lot. The case was a little tricky to get right, because we wanted to follow the road that sloped at the entrance. The result was that the surface "tips" slightly forwards and to the side. After that, there were many loads of stone flour. Björn laid about 2-3 cm on the entire surface and packed everything with the soil vibrator again after spraying with water first. We filled the surface on one side and on the front short side with about 10 cm of macadam, which was also toddy. This would become the basis for a wall. We started by laying a row of bricks, and it would lie completely flat even if the parking area slopes slightly. Behind the brick we had excavated a few decimetres, also for filling with macadam to avoid a blast effect when water freezes in winter.

The brick in place and the parking area paved. Björn laid out two iron pipes and pulled away the stone flour with a plank to get it as flat as possible. I mostly sat and was frustrated that I couldn't help. Just touching my body gave me contractions. I had to bring coffee and water, call and fix, plan and book everything that could be done by phone. It was also needed, but I also wanted to help and carry stones. What a frustration! Instead, mother-in-law Barbro arrived aged 68 and toiled like a dog. She has toiled and helped with us for months - what an asset! Father-in-law Ingvar and his wife also came one weekend and helped us.

When we saw the final result, we were even more satisfied with our color combination than when we tried out the stones. It turned out really nice! We didn't want a gray driveway, we need color in life when half the year is cold with bare trees. Then our driveway will light up the entire area! Hurray!

In the same vein that we had decided what the front and parking should look like, we appeared on the world's finest granite entrance stairs at Stenbolaget in Barkarby. It was neither in our original plan nor budget! It's not cheap to redo 500 square meters on the plot, so we thought the entrance stairs would have to wait until another year. But when we were told that the one we wanted had to be lifted in with a crane, we understood that it could not be put in place afterwards, because then we would have to ruin the paving that was in front. With that insight, it was just a matter of ordering the stone stairs and solving what needed to be solved. However, we had not expected that it would take so many days to remove the old staircase before the new one could be put in place. The old staircase did not fit in at all with the newly renovated house. Someone had long ago covered it in bathroom tiles (!?!), the stones of which had of course cracked in the winter weather. But the staircase itself was well built and set like a mountain. Björn first had to hire a car machine to remove it, but nevermind it only disappeared a bit. The next day a stone cutter was rented, but not then, and the next day again we had to rent a car machine for another day! Put some skewers and sledgehammers on it, mixed with some damn embrace and then after almost four days of full time work it was gone!

Unfortunately, or rather thankfully, we discovered moisture damage behind the old staircase because it was leaning towards the house and thus channeling the water completely wrong. At this point we understood that the delay of the project was a fact . I literally had to climb into the house for quite a while and my stomach thought it felt like that...

Then getting the new stairs in place was not the easiest thing in the world, but with the help of the digger Roland and his machine, as well as a number of coins between the stones, the jewelry came into place! Really nice!

Straight aisles - no, that's not our tune. It must be beautiful. Artistic and free and well thought out at the same time. Here, it was important to be able to visualize how a grown-up garden in combination with stone will look. We started from the stone steps. We followed the round shape with Visby flagstone. That meant over 1000 hijacks, one on each side!! I'm glad our neighbors still talk to us after all the noise.

A flagstone walkway would go from the front door of the house to a beautiful single gate, a little winding like that. Same procedure as before; dig out, fiber cloth, stone crusher and so the soil vibrator on it. Then stone flour and some padding again. First, we laid out the edge of the aisle and moved the paving stone centimeters here and there to get the exact shape we saw in our head. It's really the details that make the difference. The dream of yellow roses lining the aisle may be planted another summer.

The next cobblestone walkway from the front door wound its way down to the parking lot. We found a large rock in nature when we were excavating all the material at the beginning of the project which we moved and placed next to the walkway. Behind the stone, a lamp post will eventually light up the darkness with acacias framing everything. A suitable slope on the path down to the car park was important, so a pram could roll freely and easily. It was carefully measured with a mason's tape. Imagine our surprise when it turned out that our lilac hydrangea was the same color as the paving stones. So dazzlingly beautiful! We reinforced the sides of the corridors with concrete. The width of the substrate is approx. 10 cm wider than the stone walkway in order to hold the frieze in place together with the concrete.

Tumbled brick Visby in terracotta color would follow the topography. The same brick that framed the parking lot. It takes some thinking and hacking to get it right if you swing the wall like we did, but it worked well! People in the neighborhood who have walked by over the course of several months compliment us on how nice it is. It feels incredibly good to hear!

Once the walkways were in place, a lot of work remained to get the lawn in order. Before we put soil on, we hired an excavator again to level the surface. It didn't take more than about three hours, then it had leveled all the surfaces it touched, and we really want to emphasize that is money well invested. 

When we excavated all the material from the site, we discovered that rock was just below the gravel surface in front of houses t. We quickly decided to let it be a possibility instead of blasting it away. Mixing in a mountain could be the icing on the cake if we did it right. But we had to cut a little on one side because a stepping stone walkway would go there closest to the house. Around the balcony, the previous owners had put up a 180 cm high plank and we removed that to replace it with a lower and airier railing. Free surfaces give free thoughts. But we'll take that next year. We decided on a flower bed around the balcony of 70 cm and then a row of paving stones.

Dig out, fiber cloth, stone crusher and stone flour to level with. Just like usual. Then another fiber cloth that we bought at Stenbolaget which would be under Steppingstone. Anything that can help the weed have a harder time feels great! Then we laid out all the stones so it felt like they were right and took a photo to remember. We took 65 cm between each center of the stones. Björn's steps felt too small and my steps felt too big, so then it was probably just right! I can see how our son will jump between the stones when he grows up! We then cast the stones with coarse concrete so they would lie more still and filled in with sea shingle. Around the balcony, we want a well-planned but artistic flower bed with showy climbing roses, clematis and hydrangea growing in well-drained soil. Directly next to the flowerbed, we wanted a path with stepping stones in mica slate with black and white lake shingle in between, framed with granite paving stones. And on the other side 3 pear trees that form a pear trellis.

White fence, Lundbergs Möja had to frame the house and plot with ready-made single and double gates from Jabo. The fence, like the brick, had to follow the topography, which made it feel alive. It feels fantastic that our once ugly front is starting to take shape. We love to sit on the granite steps, have a coffee and breathe in the atmosphere of our plot!

When we bought the house, there was a newly built balcony with a high white plank around it. It was true that there was no view when we sat and ate there in the summer, but we felt trapped. Someone has said that if one's gaze meets a wall, the thought stops, but if the eyes meet the sky, the thoughts continue. That's how it feels to me, yes to us, so we opted out of the plank for more transparency. In the future, however, a lower railing will come up so that no small children can fall down from there. It was also the case that you couldn't see the water from the balcony. If we now have a balcony bigger than our old apartment in town, or like a smaller dance floor, you can't sit and look into a fence! All said and done, the balcony was extended by a few meters, the fence was scrapped and a staircase was built in the direction of the water view. In the middle of the stairs we made "regular" steps, and on both sides of the stairs we chose double steps so we could either sit there and just enjoy or put pots. A coffee and a piece of chocolate in the sun should never be underestimated. Put a kiss on it, and anyone can make it through the long winter. My philosophy has always been to celebrate every day. Drink milk from the champagne glasses. There is no point in saving the glasses for a "better" day. That's why we want to enjoy everyday moments, like a coffee in the sun with the one you love. Can life get any better than that? Hardly.
That's right, some stone would be laid too! Fiber cloth, rock crusher and stone flour with a soil vibrator that worked hard. Then another fiber cloth that Stenbolaget recommended and sea shingle around the beautiful stepping stones. For safety's sake, we bricked up the stepping stones so they would stay where we put them. A half-moon of paving stones became a small flower bed on one side, where in the spring we will plant a grass plant that does not require so much watering, as it is close to the foundation of the house. Do you think it ends abruptly? That's right, but we decided to stop with the project right there for this year, because otherwise our garden project would have gotten so big that we never started…

My mother and Björn's mother-in-law Lizbeth are great at gardening. At home in Ängelholm, it is crowded for the glory. My parents' garden overflows with old-fashioned plants, artwork, perennials and beautiful rooms. Expert help is gratefully received. Today there was a blue flower bed and a lot of hollyhocks that we hope will see the light of day next spring and summer.

Autumn is here and that means it's time to light the fire, take out the sketch pad, browse inspiring magazines and dream away a little. The cold causes the work to stop, but in the spring a lot will happen. By then we will hopefully have clearly thought out how to decorate all the discounts. It will be exciting!

A grassy board on the balcony disappeared, a patch of weeds said goodbye and a gravel field was replaced with love and life!

Friends who visit us walk past our house because it doesn't think it's the same house. A new staircase, an old hedge that disappeared (and was replaced with a fence) and beautiful pavers make our house a new one!