New driveway and terrace in Sollentuna

After many trips here and there in our thoughts, we will finally get hold of our driveway and entrance, which today can only be called a disaster. Cracked asphalt, slanted curbstone, shingle, concrete, sandstone, granite. You hardly know where to start. This is what our driveway looks like today.

My wife and I had three main goals for the renovation. 1) Create a beautiful and welcoming driveway and entrance. 2) Make sure we get a cozy balcony/terrace on the south side of the house where it is warmest and sunniest during spring/autumn. 3) Create a safe and maintenance-free environment that is not only aesthetic but also functional. We started by sketching ideas about what we wanted. The asphalt on the lower part of the driveway was in good condition and only needed new edges. However, we wanted to pave the entire upper part of the driveway and the area under our balcony, as well as make sure to build a patio and proper entrance outside the front door. This is what the sketches looked like.

When we started, we had no idea about the materials we were going to use, other than that we were both very fond of the idea of ​​a slate terrace. We went to Stenbolaget in Arninge probably 10 times before we decided on the rest. www.stenbolaget.se The flagstone that was to be on the driveway and under the balcony was Benders Ocala Antik. Curb stone in classic granite RV6. The balcony was to be walled up with play blocks and then plastered. We would build a trellis as privacy protection and lay irregular Offerdal slate. The stairs up to the door and the balcony were to be built from Stenbolaget's cool granite block steps XL!

On 20/8 it was time to start demolishing the old asphalt and the various stones and walls that were there. Fortunately, the asphalt was not laid before 1970 and was thus PHA-free, which saved a lot of extra costs for hazardous waste management and sorting. Five containers later, we are almost at port. At the same time, we were to receive delivery of almost 30 tons of stone from Stenbolaget. The driveway got crowded this week...

One of the challenges before the actual earthwork and something we spent a lot of time on is how to drain the retaining wall and the terrace that will be built up. There are mountains in the foundation that slope away from the house and the whole terrace will be like a concrete pool if we can't channel the water away effectively. Since we would rather not see the whole building explode when the cold of winter sets in or that we have an ice rink on the entire driveway, we want to make sure that all moisture and water is led away to the lower part of the plot. We'll see how it ends, but there will be a lot of mess.

The first stage of work involved pouring in the new curb stones along the driveway and building up a foundation for the terrace. We chose to wall with reinforced lightweight concrete rather than making a concrete stone wall so that the terrace would blend in better with the base of the house. This wall will therefore be plastered in the same style as the plinth on the house and the top of the terrace will be made of slate cast in concrete.

Now that all the foundation work is complete, the next segment is to build up the foundation for the terrace to be built. We started from a cast foundation with reinforcement, then we built up the retaining wall in segments with reinforced cement elements between, where electricity, drainage connections and the like were installed to create a stable foundation for the terrace. The strategy is then to fill the inside of the wall with crushed stone, pack with stone flour, and cast the slate into a reinforced slab.

A lot of time was spent planning how electricity and stormwater would be handled around the terrace. We have chosen to install an extensive 12 volt system from In-lite (see Stenbolaget's website) and wanted all connections to be replaceable if necessary. Therefore, it was important to build in junction boxes near each fixture and also to separate with cable pipes from the garage the parallel lines that would not be controlled from the In-lite's transformer. drainage grates can catch the rain and meltwater that occurs on the surface of the terrace. These pipes then run along the inside of the terrace, past the lilac and out into the garden where the water does good! All the while with just the right amount of fall…

Finally, the foundation work is more or less finished and it is time to start with the slate surface on the terrace. Slate can be laid in all sorts of ways and one is not more correct than the other. However, we have chosen to build up the substrate with crushed stone, stone flour, pack, lay fiber cloth and then pour the slate into a reinforced concrete slab. This is to avoid settling, movement in the slate and cracks in the joints, which in turn would mean weeds and the like eventually. Since we are pouring into a fairly limited area, we will also adapt the slate quite a bit and minimize the joints by cutting the pieces into regular pieces.

Our staircase, which should connect the terrace and the entrance with the driveway, has been a difficult nut to crack in terms of design. We wanted something that was inviting in all directions, but still the stairs had to be adapted to the difference in height and the angles that the terrace formed. We chose to use Stenbolaget's Blocksteg XL, which with its 400mm step depth gives a massive yet natural impression. In the end, it took a total of 13 lengths to build it together, but it certainly turned out nice!? A strong tip for those of you who are thinking of building a block step staircase at an angle is to use the children's Kapla rods for this, if you have them at home . They are perfect for planning with!

After almost a whole week of constant sawing, puzzling and casting, we are finally done with the slate laying. There are still a few individual pieces missing and some jointing to go, but overall the work is done. Just over 50 square meters of raw material was needed. Since we chose to lay the stones with fairly minimal joints, there was quite a lot of spillage and it took an awful lot of time to put together, but it was well worth the effort. Just look how beautiful! Can't wait to see how it turns out when we've cleaned the surface! :-)Furthermore, most of the electricity is now also routed in cable ducts and ready for installation. The days ahead will mainly be spent laying the ground stone and plastering the wall!

Now that the surface layer on the terrace is finished, it was quickly possible to carve together the trellis on the cast-in post shoes. We actually got the design for it from the St Erik's catalogue, where they had a trellis in large segments at an angle around a patio. The advantage of this design is that the trellis looks equally nice from the inside and the outside, and that the posts are built together by two parallel bars that wedge the transverse ribs together. This gives very good stability to the construction as well as allowing electricity to be drawn into the space formed between the ribs and the joists. For lighting on the inside of the trellis, we have chosen In-lite's very discreet "Cupid" which gives a rather weak light, more to illuminate the trellis and create a sense of space than to illuminate the surface inside. Now paving stones and painting await...then we're done!! :-)

Finally, everything is in place. A lot of hard work and not exactly free, but we're happy as can be! This afternoon we took the opportunity to enjoy the not too frequent sun on our new terrace. WONDERFUL!! Of course it turned out nice!