In 2014 Carl was contracted to construct raised gardens with brick surrounds to match other parts of our existing garden. We had a landscape designer draw up a plan for our front of house garden but it soon became obvious that the landscape designer’s plan needed modifications and Carl was able to quickly visualise how to do these. The brickwork that Carl has done is actually of a higher quality than what we had before, as Carl is better at doing curved brick walls. Because of Carl’s understanding of his materials and physics, after he finished our front garden we asked him to construct new raised brick-edged beds in our back garden. We now knew that a landscape designer was not necessary as Carl in effect does this job as well.
Carl offered suggestions as to what would look good for our driveway so we also got him to redo this in concrete with exposed aggregate finish and brick paver edging. Carl suggested a coating on the driveway which certainly gives it a nice sheen.
This year Carl has redesigned a small townhouse courtyard for us. I had a few ideas about what I wanted but after talking with Carl, new ideas occurred to me and Carl was happy to change the plan.The pavers I liked were a shiny slate and Carl advised that they would be dangerous when wet so Carl brought around other samples for us to choose from and we selected a matt slate. We were able to use up some left-over brick pavers from the previous driveway, and Carl was happy to do this. I had the idea of having a pergola and a couple of days later I thought it would be good if the pergola brackets matched the brackets under thieves of the Victorian townhouse. It transpired that Carl had already taken a photo of the brackets on the house as he had already thought to make the pergola to match. I painted the pergola myself and the bolted on workmanship in it is of a high standard. Carl made a very neat concrete plinth for a birdbath which raises the birdbath up for better effect.
Carl is so good at making my vague ideas become solid structures that I have now dreamed up a couple more jobs for him and I am looking forward to seeing them happen.
Marilyn Powell