Project Showcase - Balmain

Job at Hand

A complete blank canvas, when we were called to meet with the homeowners and discuss what we could do to modernise this heritage home there was nothing more than a blank canvas.

They wanted to incorporate Sydney sandstone and give a vibrant yet elegant feel though besides that They were stuck and needed guidance. We had a chat and with no real plan they asked us to do what we think is best so worked together with the homeowners giving our ideas and suggestions and they gave us the go ahead.

We laid 50mm sandstone in “French Pattern” with all treads bullnosed to give a softer feel, French pattern steppers and used sawn sandstone as garden edging. After showing a few examples of feature trees a Dracaena Draco “Dragon Tree” was the tree of choice. What better way then to showcase this is a pot.

Being on a main street with much traffic privacy was an issue for the homeowners as it could get very noisy at times an instant established garden was requested with whatever we feel would be best suited. We began to think and plan what we could do to make this garden unique.

This garden is completely irrigated and the plants are thriving, the white-painted fence worked as a beautiful backdrop to the Dracaena Trifasciata “Mother-in-laws-tongue” but what the homeowners loved the most was the use of Zoysia and Casuarina Glauca “Cousin It” around the sandstone steppers and what it did visually for the front yard.

Challenges

This project was a very busy site with many tradesmen daily working on what was not a huge space, this meant we had to communicate regularly with other trades. There were times we needed to fill buckets of water in the morning to use when mixing our mortar throughout the day because the plumbers would have the water off for a few hours that day, or even cutting as much stone on the table saw one day because there would be no power due to electricians the next day. Once we had finished a section we would need to put down protection plastic so we didn’t prevent other trades from working.
We had to regularly be cautious of pedestrians and plan deliveries accordingly due to access. In the end, it was nothing we hadn’t dealt with before.