It’s been a few months since my last post.
Xmas has been and gone, so has what seemed a very long January, and a very short February. No serious flooding like we had last year, but a recent spell of cold snowy weather put paid to outside work.
I’ve been busy working on clients properties, and that doesn’t seem to be dropping off, so very little has been done at the house, bar planning layouts and new doorways etc.
My next door neighbour, Patrick, offered me a solution to the original problem of garden access.
He asked how I proposed to get to the garden without walking out onto the street. I’d thought of a solution before buying the house, but it was never going to be ideal.
It meant buying the land in front of the house from the Town Hall (which I’ve done), and then rebuilding a large wall on the left hand side of the house, so I could gain length on the new ‘Fountain Terrace’ and therefore create an opening down into the garage.
I’d have been quite prepared to do that, if Patrick had not come up with an alternative.
Original idea was to move this wall forward
On a drawing it would be this change
I’d actually thought of his idea already, but as I didnt know him, I never broached the subject with him, thinking it fraught with problems and a deterioration of the ‘entente cordiale’! It simplifies the garden access enormously by alleviating the need to move the big 60cm thick wall further forward, and knocking through an opening into the garage (taking up valuable space for parking).
His idea was to ‘give’ me a 1.4m wide section of his open-fronted shelter that is adjacent to my terrace. A very kind gesture. He’s giving me nothing in fact – I’ll build up a wall on his side to support a sort of corridor leading down to the garden. He will use underneath this corridor as a storage space. All would be legal and done at the notaires office.
Corridor from the ‘Fountain Terrace’ leading to the garden
Its a nice idea but quite costly. I’m going to do some calculations before I agree with him and go ahead with it.