Torpet will get a new parking lot, walkway and patio

December 2007, we took the step to become real homeowners and invested in a house in "good condition". However, it eventually turned out that a lot of work would be needed with both the house and the plot. As a bonus, a smaller house on the plot was also included, which in our inexperienced judgment could easily be classified as an object for demolition and was therefore quite seriously downgraded on our "to-do-list". Over time, however, there was a rather strong attraction to the house, which we sold had been classified as a boatman's croft from about 1850. So almost 2 years after the purchase, we decided to take hold of the croft both inside and out. A project with a capital "P". In order to give the croft its full charm, we also wanted to redo the parking, walkway and patio as this was mostly missing. Parking was a simple grass driveway on the grounds and then you had to wind your way up to the cabin on the lawn between lilac bushes. Admittedly charming already in this way, but our plans were on a higher level. That's why we started already in autumn 2009 to drain around the cabin and then finish everything a few years later. Worth mentioning, through inspiration from Stenbolaget. A lengthy and interesting project that was really successful.

As a first step (autumn 2009), we start with draining around the house. It's definitely easier to do this first before it's too late :)

The project went quietly until the summer of 2010 because we instead focused on finishing the croft on the inside. Now, however, it was time to get started on the outside of the croft. We excavated the north, west and south sides for the walkway and patios and then continued with the walkway down to the parking lot and exit. Since we couldn't get an excavator up to the croft, we had to bring out some shovels and muscle strength.

The next step was to get all the rubble out of the parking lot and all the corridors. Thankfully we had tow truck help with this.

When everything was vibrated and ready, we invested in getting clear lines to work from. That's why we cast the main street stone around all the corridors and the parking lot. The project is starting to take shape and an end is beginning to be seen. The first load of paving stones arrived according to the promised delivery time. We thought this would be enough, but well, we got it. We eventually had to reorder a number of extra pallets with stone.

Then it was finally time for paving. Autumn started to press on and it would have been nice to get everything ready before the cold starts too intense. Laying stone turned out to be a clearly more time-consuming job than expected. Thankfully there is good knee protection... We started with the car park and then worked our way up towards and around the cabin.

After many thousands of stones, the last stone was finally in place 4 months after the first sod was laid. Here are some of the results in different seasons.