Lazy Susan Furniture » Building

The fundamentals of modern garden design

Lazy Susan — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 09:35:24 +0000

Good modern garden design always starts with a good plan. While some people are able to plan their garden by just walking about in it or working in stages, most of us need to start out with a clear drawn out plan. Start by thinking about what you want from the finished garden – what kind of a look and feel do you want to achieve in the end? Clarify your needs from the off and then decide in your own mind what kind of garden would meet those needs. Modern garden design gives us many choices and the final choice will depend on a number of factors.

How much time do you want to spend working in the garden? If your idea of gardening is sitting on your Lazy Susan Emma chair with a glass of wine and a good book, a formal layout or a ‘knot’ garden is probably not for you. The formal rose garden, although stunning to look at, seems to have fallen out of favour in modern garden design as they require a vast amount of maintenance. Nowadays we tend to plant roses as a focal point or as part of a mixed border, climbers or…

Transform your garden with a water feature

Lazy Susan — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 13:05:05 +0000

In our humble ‘Lazy Susan’ opinion, the completion of any serious landscaping project should include at least one water feature. I know some people think they can be a little ‘old fashioned’ but we are not just talking victorian gardens here. There are many contemporary designs to choose from too. It all depends on the period of your property, the surrounding landscape, the size of your garden and whether or not you want to have them free standing, attached to a fence or even sitting on your patio. Ponds, pools, fountains, water wall fountains, and waterfalls – all of these add to the peace and tranquility of the garden as well as the visual appeal and you only have to take a stroll around any flower show to see how a garden can be transformed by both the modern style and more traditional water features.

You can now buy a good quality water feature ready made and all you have to do is install and add a water pump. There are also pool liners, rocks of all kinds and kits you can buy if you want to design and build your own water feature, so that you have something completely…

Build the Perfect Brick BBQ – Just in time for summer!

Lazy Susan — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 08:27:59 +0000

Traditional barbecues come in all shapes and sizes from a variety of DIY stores, but if you are serious about your BBQ and enjoy a little DIY, what could be more satisfying than building your own brick barbecue? The materials you need are relatively inexpensive, and as well as making a unique feature this will blend in perfectly with your home and patio and will last much longer than metal, which tends to be a rusted mess after a year or two of the UK’s damp summers.

Firstly, think about the position of your BBQ. You don’t want your BBQ to suddenly become the dominant feature. Tucked in a corner is always your best bet, but make sure there isn’t anything close by that could be damaged from the heat. Wherever you decide to build your BBQ, it must be constructed on a solid hard surface and securely bedded paving slabs are ideal for the base.

Start by making a wooden frame that can act as a template guide to the dimensions of the grill kit. Lay the bricks out dry (without any mortar) to enable the correct brickwork bond to be determined and go for a brick that…

How to lay the perfect slab patio

Lazy Susan — Tue, 04 May 2010 14:18:30 +0000

If you want to lay the perfect slab patio, then this blog will hopefully help to guide you through the process. Once you’ve decided upon the design of your patio and selected the slab you want to use, then you’re ready for the the easy part – laying the patio! The two most common mistakes that spoil a patio, are uneven surfaces and poor foundations. This will result in your patio breaking up and sinking in sections. However, if you get the foundations right before you start to lay your patio slabs, then you won’t have any problems.

Preparing the foundations

If the area where the patio is to go has a hard well-compacted soil base, then huge quantities of hardcore are not really necessary. This type of compacted soil base is found in areas that have been well walked upon over the years, or have been subject to several passes by heavy plant machinery. If you can dig your heel into the surface, then it will need bolstering up with a layer of sub-base, compacted into the surface with a plate compactor that you can easily hire from the likes of A-plant and HSS.

If the area has been a flower bed…