Front garden planning...

So... my wife is at yoga this morning... and my kids are at school... and all of them won't be back until later in the afternoon! Which means that this Friday is a get stuff done sort of Friday! Top of the list (apart from the cleaning and tidying up of the house... and the folding of clothes that my wife has assigned me...) is the application for the building and environmental permit for our front garden renovation.

_{PS: I'm not including Imperial conversions this time for Americans... to convert from logical and universally derivable SI units to stuff that people just make up, I believe that you need to take the current relative velocity of the Earth with respect to the black hole at the centre of the galaxy, multiplied by the time of day in milliseconds after Sun rise and then add a random hash factor determined by the last 5 numbers in the latest Ethereum block hash.}

Hopefully, this application is more of a formality than anything else... seeing as we are just doing small work. However, as it is in the front and we are building "structures" that are higher than 1 metre in height.... we are obliged to file for a permit. Our gardener (the guy who will build the stuff) said that he's never done a permit application for this sort of thing before... but we are cautious people, and figure it is best just to apply... even if doing it in a second language (Dutch) is a little bit slow going for me....

So, our plan is to build a wire fence on the top and left side of our front garden (about 180 centimetres high) to grow ivy upon... similar to the photo above, so that people can't just look straight through our house from the front straight through to the back! Seeing as my wife and I practice in the living room, it means that people sometimes just stand and listen to us whilst we are playing piano or violin. It's pretty weird and not so great for our practice concentration! Actually, it bothers my wife more than me...

... the second main idea is to build a half under and half over ground bike shed at the top and top left corner of the garden. It would be roughly 100 centimetres over and 150 centimeters over the ground and be covered and have walls. We haven't decided on brick or wood or wire sides... and the top could also house a garden (which I prefer) or not (which my wife prefers...). It would have steps leading in, and a metal gutter to wheel the bikes in and out easily up a relatively steep slope.

As for the rest of the garden... we are still up in the air as to what exactly we will do with it. Garden space definitely, but maybe some rock garden space as well... that sort of thing we can wing after the main stuff is done. It is a side of the house that gets relatively little Sun... and we don't spend much time in the front, so it doesn't get the same amount of care that the back side does... plus, there is no water outlet to water the plants. All of this leads us to an option that will require the least amount of care.

I think I will also ask the gardener to also check the piping (water in/out) as well... the pipes lie on the left hand side of the above photo. After a recent bubble bath for the girls, we saw lots of bubbles forming in the garden after the bath was drained... so, I'm starting to wonder if the pipe is cracked... which might explain some slower than normal drainage of the bath.

So, as part of the planning submission process... I need to draw up plans (for this sort of small renovation... I'm sure as hell not hiring an architect!) with a bit of a before and after depiction of the proposed renovation. So, this above picture is the pre-renovation ground plan... It's a bit amateurish... I'm definitely never getting employed either as an artist or a architect!... however, I think that it has all the relevant information... it just looks like it was drawn by my toddler...

.. and this is the post-renovation plans. With a small description written in my terrible Dutch... so, not only does this plan look like it was drawn by a toddler... it sounds like it was WRITTEN by a toddler.

So, I was going to immediately submit the plans (and pay the 80 or so euros for the permit...)... but then I thought, hmmmmm... maybe I should just wait until my wife sees this and okays it. It is definitely what we had agreed upon (and when I say agreed... well, we know how that works...).... however, there is every chance that I may have a screwed up understanding on what our consensus was!

Perhaps a good idea to wait... after all, the application can be done online and isn't really time critical... sometime this week to submit would be fine! I'm a touch nervous about submitting it though... I've never done anything like this before... so, I wonder if I'm doing it right... it's even worse when it is a language which isn't your strongest one. If this was English, it would be easy... however, the Dutch application has had me putting it off until now. But at least the plans are drawn and the appopriate photos have been taken... so, I have no excuse now to NOT submit the application. Again... I'm hoping that this will be just a formality.... after all, many people do this sort of thing.... and I don't expect that there would be any huge objection to this... that said, it would be seriously annoying if this was refused. We have had our hearts set on doing this!