Case study
Original stone patio lifted, drained and relaid in Kew
- Location
- Kew, Richmond (TW9)
- Timescale
- Under three weeks
- Services used
- Patio lift and relay, linear drainage and soakaway, shed base, sleeper bed, fence screening, gate
- Approximate value
- Available on request
The brief
Keep the patio, fix everything under it
This narrow Kew garden runs back from a terraced house, with an old natural stone patio laid in a random pattern down most of its length. The brief was to keep that stone and its pattern. What the patio needed was a proper base and somewhere for the rain to go.
There was more on the list: a base for a new shed, a bed around the tree at the back, privacy along the rear fence and a gate that closed properly.
Before and after
The same garden, under three weeks apart
The approach
Every slab back where it was
Before a single slab came up, the whole patio was photographed in detail. The stones were then lifted and stacked in labelled sections, so the original pattern could be put back exactly as it was.
With the stone out of the way, the ground was dug to depth and a compacted MOT Type 1 base laid. Linear channel drains went in to take surface water off the patio, piped to a crate soakaway set at the right distance from the house. The slabs were then relaid on the new base following the photographs, with the old edging reused to frame the beds.
At the far end, a concrete base was poured inside timber shuttering for the shed. Timber sleepers were fitted around the tree to hold back the soil, screening made from planed battens was fixed along the rear fence, and the gate was rehung with a new locking latch.
Access was the hard part. Everything came in and went out on foot down a long alley to the back of the house, and with no skip on site, waste was bagged and carried round to the front for collection.
The result
The same garden, built to last
From the back door it looks like the patio it always was, the same stones in the same places. The difference is underneath: a firm base, drainage that takes the water away, and a garden finished at the back with a shed, a sleeper bed and a screened fence.
Services used on this project
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