We moved into our house in September and needed to do something with the garden so bad. It’s a north facing garden in Scotland so little sunlight apart from in summer.
We were quoted £18k for this. No way I could afford it. I’ve never done any of this myself before but I’m an average DIYer. I dug everything out by hand. All the sunken patio area and all of the turf as well.
I laid all the sub base and grano dust as well as putting in all the sleepers and even cutting the grass into the sleepers which I was most worried about as I wanted a nice finish.
I did have my bricky father in law lay the patio but that’s the only thing he physically helped with apart from a couple of questions.
Our garden had gone from a mud pit to a super nice space to use for the kids and a nice chill out spot for us adults. The patio gets the sun almost all day in the summer now.
Really pleased with myself I managed to pull this off! Took me just over a month to do it all from start to finish. Cost about £3500-4000 in the end.
Still bits to finish but will get to them over the next few months.
Edit: wow it’s really sad to see my efforts tarnished because of the grass. Do you not see the massive planter areas that we haven’t gotten round to yet? Our plan is to plant some native shrubs and greenery in there. The garden was an absolute mess before and now it’s a super useable space for my family.