A picture speaks a thousand words. Whether it’s the awkward smile- and pose, we all have one picture that makes us cringe a little. We have gathered some tips on what to do when taking a family picture this festive season.
The festive season is almost upon us. But before we can wind down, there are things to prepare before enjoying a relaxing holiday. This blog explores the things to consider when preparing your property before the festive season.
Here are our tips – from simple budget-friendly to luxe options to transform your indoor outdoor flow.
Not only for usability, the concrete driveway, boulder retaining wall and gabion retaining wall on the lower side of the driveway has made this property really shine!
So how did we create it? Check out the video to see the transformation in action.
Here’s the how-to guide:
We created a retaining wall made of boulders. Firstly, the digger cut out of the side of the slope. The cuts were terraced so that the bottom boulders don’t carry all the weight of all the boulders stacked.
Using the strength of the digger, the boulders were placed carefully along the length of the drive, placed carefully to hold up no matter the weather.
Then a path was created to the right of the shed. Drainage was laid prior to the path being concreted.
The lower sloping section to the left of the drive leading to the shed was dug out into a terrace ready for the gabion wall.
Blue metal for drainage was raked over the surface.
Black plastic was placed over the cut face to stop the rain from collapsing it.
The gabion baskets were then placed in perfect alignment using yellow string as a guide.
The team hand-placed rocks in the baskets to ensure correct fill and no gaps. The Little Digger did the heavy lifting, bringing the rocks to site to speed up the process.
Once the baskets were filled, they were then closed using wire springs.
This was repeated with the second layer of baskets placed above. For more detailed information on creating Gabion walls and structures, check out our blog post How to build a gabion wall.
The driveway was then levelled and metal spread for reinforcing. The outline of the driveway formed up with timber.
The concrete was then poured and levelled which finished off the job, creating a beautiful level drive and a much more usable and beautiful area on the property.
Crunchy brown grass, gardens suffering, water tanks low... that's our current predicament here in Matakana. The rain has arrived, lets hope it stays around to fill tanks and give the land a good soak.
In these times it's easy to forget about getting your property prepared for the wet season – but now is actually the right time to do it!
Here's our advice on what to do now, to prevent issues arising and to capture all that valuable water to use where and when it's needed:
