Gazebo in the garden

For the past two weeks, we have been very busy in the garden preparing for our gazebo. I have waited for several years to have a gazebo. It’s a big expense and I wanted to make sure we had it in the right place. One of my biggest loves in a garden to compliment plants is fairy lights. I have always loved them. Any structure that can support them is all good by me.
We watched for the rain and wind direction to help decide where it should be and then we had to do a lot of ground prep, lifting and moving big slabs etc. 

We lifted the slabs and raked back all the gravel. We were exhausted after this as you can imagine, but what a sense of achievement!

We thought we could have a go at laying the slabs ourselves. This is where it started to fall apart a little….

We called a local building company and explained what we were trying to do, they told us the materials we needed and delivered the next day. When we started to shovel the grit and stone we very quickly realised that what we were sent would never compact. We had been sent material for laying a concrete slab, not slabs. We called the building company and they told us it must have been a miscommunication and refused to allow us to return the material! Fortunately we could use it somewhere else in the garden, but the moral here is use experts!
We hired a lovely local company who came and used some material we had bought, laid the slabs and were done in a day!

Next, we used a different building company 😊 to deliver four bulk bags of stones and filled the area ready for the gazebo.
We had paid for installation of the gazebo because we knew it was beyond our skill set and thank goodness we did, it looked super complicated!

The team arrived all the way from Liverpool and did an amazing job. Within the day, it was up and ready for fairy lights 🤩. It’s not the biggest gazebo in the world but it is just what we wanted.

There are two sides that we will get waterproof blinds for so that we can enjoy it when it rains. We love being outside and this will enable us to enjoy the garden for years to come. 

Our wee gazebo complete with lights ready for evenings in the garden.