Brickwork Projects for Patio & Garden E-Book

Alan Bridgewater

• Herausgeber: Creative Homeowner
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Seitenzahl: 143

Beschreibung

From the decorative to the practical, Brickwork Projects for Patio & Garden offers a range of projects for all levels of expertise. Sixteen original projects range from a simple garden wall to a beautiful raised herringbone patio. Each project has been photographed step-by-step during construction and the finished piece is shown in its garden setting. Clear construction diagrams and concise text accompany every project. A comprehensive techniques section provides expert advice and information on designing, planning, tools, materials, foundations, concrete, mortar and cutting and laying brick. This attractive and accessible DIY book is full of ideas for creating practical garden features using this simple and traditional material.

Leseprobe

COPYRIGHT © 2004, 2017

The right of A. & G. Bridgewater to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Copyright © 2004, 2017 illustrations and photographs IMM Lifestyle Books

Copyright © 2004, 2017 IMM Lifestyle Books

This book may not be reproduced, either in part or in its entirety, in any form, by any means, without written permission from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts for purposes of radio, television, or published review. All rights, including the right of translation, are reserved. Note: Be sure to familiarize yourself with manufacturers’ instructions for tools, equipment, and materials before beginning a project. Although all possible measures have been taken to ensure the accuracy of the material presented, neither the authors nor the publisher is liable in case of misinterpretation of directions, misapplication, or typographical error.

Creative Homeowner® is a registered trademark of New Design Originals Corporation.

Designed and created for IMM Lifestyle Books by AG&G Books. Copyright © 2004, 2017 “Specialist” AG&G Books

DESIGNER: Kate Lanphier

EDITOR: Jeremy Hauck

ILLUSTRATORS: Gill Bridgewater and Coral Mula

PROJECT DESIGN: Alan and Gill Bridgewater

PHOTOGRAGHY: AG&G Books and Ian Parsons

BRICKWORK: Alan Bridgewater

Shutterstock photos: Artazum (page 16), Baptist (page 39 bottom right), bogdanhoda (page 21), cobalt88 (cell phone: page 7), Ozgur Coskun (page 31), Dream2551 (page 39 top), eightstock (rubber gloves: page 7), Scott E. Feuer (page 17), Gavran333 (goggles: page 7), Vladimir Gjorgiev (page 24 top), John GK (page 55), Ispace (dust mask: page 7), jiangdi (page 100 bottom left), Kjpargeter (plate compactor: page 22), Jill Lang (page 11), Alexander Lobanov (cement mixer: page 23), Maxx-Studio (first-aid kit: page 7), Zima Nadezhda (page 49), Pagina (page 108), prapann (plywood: page 23), PriceM (boots: page 7), randy andy (pages 9, 51), Peter Turner Photography (page 13 bottom).

Brickwork Projects for Patio & Garden: Designs, Instructions and 16 Easy-to-Build Projects is published by Creative Homeowner under license with IMM Lifestyle Books.

ISBN 978-1-58011-793-7

eISBN 978-1-60765-940-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bridgewater, Alan, author. | Bridgewater, Gill, author.

Title: Brickwork projects for patio & garden / Alan & Gill Bridgewater.

Description: Mount Joy, PA: Creative Homeowner, [2017] | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017014567 | ISBN 9781580117937 (pbk.)

Subjects: LCSH: Patios--Design and construction. | Brickwork.

Classification: LCC TH4970 .B743 2017 | DDC 690/.893--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017014567

Creative Homeowner®, www.creativehomeowner.com, is an imprint of New Design Originals Corporation and distributed exclusively in North America by Fox Chapel Publishing Company, Inc., 800-457-9112, 903 Square Street, Mount Joy, PA 17552, and in the United Kingdom by Grantham Book Service, Trent Road, Grantham, Lincolnshire, NG31 7XQ.

CONTENTS

Preface

Health and Safety

Brickwork Inspiration

Part 1: Techniques

Design and Planning

Tools

Materials

Foundations

Concrete and Mortar

Cutting Brick, Stone and Concrete

Bricklaying

Brick Bonds and Patterns

Walls and Other Structures

Patios, Paths and Steps

Finishing and Maintenance

Part 2: Projects

Flower Border Edging

Country Cottage Path

Raised Herringbone Patio

Classic Birdbath

Planted Patio

Decorative Raised Bed

Simple Garden Wall

Storage Seat

Gateway Columns

Strawberry Barrel

Semicircular Steps

Tudor Arch Wall Niche

Classic Round Pond

Brick Barbecue

Feature Wall

Waterspout

Glossary

PREFACE

When we saw our first house—an isolated Victorian farmhouse—we were confronted with numerous red brick outbuildings which were all, to some degree, tumbledown ruins. However, the bricks were crisp and hard-edged, and the lime mortar soft—so much so that we were able to scrape the bricks clean. We decided to salvage bricks from the outbuildings to renovate and extend the main house. We made contact with a retired master bricklayer in the village, who was prepared to give advice.

We spent the next ten years working on our home—Gill scraping the bricks, and our two toddler sons doing their part. Of course it was hard work, and we made lots of mistakes, but we were spurred on by the excitement of it all. We had the time of our lives building everything from walls and arches through to pillars, posts, raised beds, paths, sheds and even the top half of a well!

The ambition of this book is to share with you all the pleasures of working with brick to create garden features. With each project, we take you through the procedures of considering the design and working out how it might be modified to suit your individual needs. We tell you how to use the tools and materials, and explain the essential techniques. Illustrations and photographs show how best to achieve the step-by-step procedures; in fact, we take you through all the stages of designing, making, constructing and finishing.

Brickwork doesn’t require complex tools or specialized knowledge: it is about working with your hands in the garden, and the pleasure of using your mind and body to create exciting structures.

Best of luck!

The imperial measurements used in this book were converted from metric. However, in all cases, the original metric measurements are given in parentheses. For best accuracy, keep to one system and avoid using a combination of metric and imperial measurements.

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Gloves

Goggles

Dust mask

Earmuffs

First-aid kit

Cell phone

Rubber gloves

Boots

In-line GFCI

• A few projects are physically demanding and if you have doubts about whether you are up to it, get advice from your doctor. When lifting heavy items, minimize back strain by holding the item close to your body, and bend your knees rather than your back.

• Never operate a machine, or attempt a difficult lifting or maneuvering task, if you are feeling tired.

• Follow manufacturers’ instructions when using tools and materials.

• Keep a first-aid kit and phone nearby, in case of an emergency and, if possible, avoid working alone.

• Do not build a pond if you have young children. Other water features are safer, but even so, never leave children unsupervised.

• Use an in-line GFCI (between the power socket and the plug) when operating electrical tools and water pumps, to prevent electric shock.

• Brickwork—digging holes, breaking up hardcore and handling bricks—is tough on your hands, so wear hefty leather gloves whenever possible. You will probably have to take them off for minute tasks.

• When mixing concrete and mortar, wear waterproof, thick rubber gloves, which will protect your skin from contact with corrosive cement powder.

• Boots made from thick leather, preferably steel-toe boots, will protect your feet.

• Sometimes it is necessary to wear additional protective gear, especially when you are cutting materials that generate sharp chippings and a lot of dust. Wear goggles when you are smashing hardcore, cutting or breaking bricks, stone and concrete, and a dust mask when mixing cement powder.

• When using an angle grinder, wear heavy boots, gloves, goggles, a dust mask and earmuffs.

• Wear earmuffs when using any noisy machine.

BRICKWORK INSPIRATION

Bricks are wonderfully easy to handle and make building a pleasure. Any patio or garden structure made out of brick looks solid and imposing, and with their ability to fit into a wide variety of patterns and designs, nothing beats bricks for versatility in creative structure design. What’s more, bricks seem to blend into their surroundings.

Rugged, natural and soft-textured, bricks possess an inherent beauty. Moreover, they come in a wide spectrum of colors, from slate blue and black to red and even creamy white, encompassing a rainbow of oranges, yellows and umbers along the way. When you add your own patterns, you can make any structure endlessly interesting to look at.

Three easy-to-follow approaches will allow you to enhance the visual interest of most brickwork projects: setting bricks in different patterns and formations, incorporating bricks of different colors, and harmonizing bricks with wood, stone or tile.

Traditional bond patterns like herringbone, basket weave and diaper formations offer ways to easily create exciting visual texture (see here). To extend their design flexibility even further, bricks can be set with the frog face or the bottom face upwards, on their end (header), or on their side (stretcher—see here.) They can also be cut or angled.

Aside from patterning and using bricks of varying colors, a third way to add visual interest to brickwork is to develop the natural harmonies that bricks share with other natural materials, notably stone, tile and wood. The thoughtful incorporation of these other materials will complement the sturdy earthiness of bricks.

This urban haven echoes the brickwork of the surrounding edifices. The two-by-two basketweave pattern forms a sturdy and attractive patio, while the flower border edging cleanly separates the patio and the flower border.

Everything about this rustic but formal staircase is in harmony, from the symmetry created by the arrangement of flowerpots to the interesting contrast between the worn red bricks and the green lines of moss just beginning to overtake the bricks. These wide steps, formed by bricks bedded on their stretcher sides in a running bond, rise gracefully to the entrance of a stately home. The wide landing could double as a patio.

A huge brick patio that encircles a low dwarf hedge (not shown) and looks rather like a very wide path. The patio is built to accommodate a sloping site—the outer edge is raised and the inner edge is flush with the turf by the hedge.

This solidly well-built flight of steps connects a path to a beautiful brick courtyard. The design appears effortless, but in fact great care has gone into planning the overall brickwork scheme and incorporating steps that are subtly curved.

A number of brickwork projects—path, columns, walls and flower border edging—comes together in an imposing “tied-in” structure. The path draws you through the gateway and turns to follow the wall; softening the picture, formal flowerbeds edged with bricks laid on their header faces divide path and wall. The foundation under these weighty structures must be extensive, but the bricks protruding at the corners of the columns add a delicate touch, as do the blossoms peeping through the gaps in the honeycomb bond.

A traditional English Sussex farmyard wall with the bricks set in a heading bond (the courses run at a diagonal angle to the ground).

A decorative, low-rise set of two steps in a country garden. Notice how the shape and sweeping arrangement of the steps leads the eye across the patio to the other steps and the lawn beyond. The framed herringbone pattern and recessed detailing must have been a challenge to build.

The contrast between the even, square shapes of the brickwork and the curvy and rounded shapes of the landscaping adds visual interest to this cozy planted patio. Further heightening the complexity of the design is the variety of plants and the intersecting brickwork patterns. The rustic wood bench and the bright wall lend a softening, harmonizing touch.

The perfect circular shape of this raised garden pond, which must have required many bricks to build, would have been challenging to achieve, but it creates an ideal centerpiece to this formal garden. The aged look of the bricks makes for an appealing invitation to reflect on the scenic beauty. Note how the header splays used to form the rim of the pond create a seating area.

PART 1: TECHNIQUES

DESIGN AND PLANNING

The art of working with bricks relies on the coordination between mind, hand and eye: the key words are planning, rhythm, repetition and timing. The trick is to fit the components together with the minimum of measuring and as few cuts as possible. If you do have to make a cut, the challenge is to get it right the first time! If you can use the bricks as you find them—new, salvaged, seconds or left over from another job—so much the better.

Choosing a suitable project

Sometimes it is easy to get carried away and build something massive that dominates the space and frankly looks out of place, because the scale is wrong and the style is not suitable. So before you decide what to build, take stock of your garden or yard and consider how to improve it. If it is cluttered, you may want to rebuild an existing feature to make it smaller, stronger or more decorative. If the area is a bombsite or a blank canvas, design the whole garden first; when you are ready to build brickwork projects, make sure they fit into the overall scheme.

Garden features are more than basic structures that are constructed out of necessity—they are also decorative. You may need to change the appearance or style of a project to suit your garden. For example, a simple, well-proportioned brick planter would suit a modern scheme, but for a Victorian garden, it would be more appropriate to incorporate detailing and decoration. From a safety point of view, avoid building ponds and some water features if you have young children.

FIRST CONSIDERATIONS

• What do you want to achieve? Write down the aspects that are important to you, and look at magazines, books and other people’s gardens to assess the possibilities. If necessary, change our project designs to suit your needs.

• Bricks are made in many colors and textures. Do some research into what is available, and see what you like.

• To make a project fit better into your space, you may have to consider changing its size, shape and proportions. Would it, for example, look better as a larger but low, long and thin structure, or as a square rather than round structure? Use the dimensions of a brick to dictate the precise overall project dimensions—working in a number of whole bricks wherever possible. (See here for how to cut bricks.)

• Location and orientation are important. Mark the envisaged position with sticks, plastic sheet or plywood, and look out for possible problems such as the blocking of routes through the garden, unfortunate viewpoints and the casting of shadows.

• If the project is a pond or water feature, does it require a long trench to be dug in the garden to bury a power cable, and is this possible?

• Are there parts of a project’s construction that you don’t understand? Try working out the problem on paper or mocking up the structure with real materials.

• Calculate the costs and time involved, to make sure that the project is feasible.

Siting: Deciding where on the site—in the garden or on the plot—the structure is going to be placed. The aspect, sun, shade and proximity to the house may need to be taken into consideration.

Planning the project

The first part of a project (and one of the most important) is deciding on its precise size and location. For a patio outside your back door, for example, you need to know its finished height, how it slopes in order to drain rainwater away from the house, and its exact size to the nearest brick and mortar joint.

In the projects in this book, a lot of the planning has been done for you, but do take note of any advice or exceptions that suggest you might need to revise the design, and which refer you to a page within this techniques section. Do a survey of the site and draw simple scaled diagrams on graph paper, showing how the foundation is constructed and how the project is built. Some structures pose more obvious planning problems: steps, for example, have to conform to certain dimensions, otherwise you will trip over them; walls that are too high or long can lean or fall down without the benefit of extra support (see here).

Every brickwork project requires a foundation: a firm, level (or sometimes slightly sloping, in the case of a patio) base on which to build, otherwise it will collapse. It is very important to use an appropriate foundation, and to plan it in a drawing to show its size and depth. For example, if you want a patio to be level with the surrounding ground, the patio needs to take into account the thickness of the bricks that will be used for paving.

Buying the right tools and materials

Once you have figured out the project design in detail, you can assess what you need to build it. Sometimes, it is necessary to compromise with both tools and materials in order to make a project affordable. If that is the case, ensure you have enough time to do the work with basic manual tools, and don’t resort to inferior materials that will deteriorate quickly.

If you don’t have a wonderful set of tools, consider borrowing or renting better ones. A cement mixer is worth renting if you are working on a large project, unless you enjoy bodybuilding exercise! Call around for quotes for materials, and order in bulk when possible. The choice of bricks available depends on your location; you can also consider using second-quality bricks (rejects) or reclaimed (secondhand) bricks.

Planning: The procedure of considering a project, viewing the site, making drawings, working out quantities and costs, prior to starting work. Thorough planning is vital in order to avoid hold-ups and the wastage of materials.

Trial run or dry run: