Paving Part 4 - Finished At Last!

I realise that I never uploaded photos of the progress with the paving - I think that was because my camera batteries expired.  At the time of my last post on paving - here - I had started laying the slabs at the back of the house but had yet to tackle the back door step.  Since then I have made considerable progress:

Firstly, I did the back door step. This uses some old engineering bricks

(in a sort of larger than usual Imperial size) on a concrete foundation set in a rectangle, with one in the middle as well; in the photo (right) there are extra ones inside which were used to support the temporary step while the cement set.  After they were removed, the structure was in-filled with gravel and topped with a 90cm x 60 cm x 4cm limestone slab which matches the ones I've been laying.  The step is above halfway as you have to step over the bottom of the door frame and, in any case, it is quite difficult getting that sort of thing spot on.

The result is pretty pleasing and certainly my grandson finds it easy to use, which is what matters.  The rest of the paving was pretty easy, aided by judicious use of an angle grinder, hired for possibly the last time.

Here you can see the finished back door step surrounded by the paving, with the addition of the stone seat which I bought on the spur of the moment at my favourite reclamation yard. My grandson has already found out with his head how solid the stone seat is!

I'm also quite pleased with the infill up to the wall: this is "self-compacting gravel" as recommended by my groundworker for the driveway, and it seemed a good thing to fill the gap.  Having a thing about dampness, even in a brand new construction with a DPC like this, I didn't want the stone going up to the wall as that would then cause rain to splash on the wall.

Then, last week, we had the pleasure of sitting with the entire family on our patio for the very first time; I now have to do the barbecue - if there is any summer left for entertaining.