On a Spring weekend in Poynton, Cheshire, the North West Paving Centre started work to turn an old, weed-ridden area adjacent to a north-facing wall into a bright centerpiece of what became a stunning Summer garden.

Over the next few days we will be detailing the transformation. Read on to learn more about how this particular project has made its owners fall in love with their garden all over again!

In 1999 Annabel & John moved to Poynton and bought a house with a large garden, and an old crazy-paving patio next to the north-facing wall of their house.

Despite their best efforts, the patio was a menace - always dark, frequently weed-ridden and very irregular underfoot - it could sometimes be dangerous to walk on, especially in winter.

"The other problem with this patio was the stone was rather dull-looking. On a north facing wall that blocked out much of the sunlight it created a dark and uninspiring space - even if the patio had been correctly laid, which it wasn't," explained Annabel.

Here's how the patio and an adjoining bit of grass looked in March 2006. As you can see, it was an eyesore! 

"Fortunately for us, we thought the existing patio had settled and would be solid enough to act as a hardcore base for the new patio. Secondly the house's DPC course was very high up, which meant there was no need to excavate to put a new patio in."

However, putting a new patio over the old one was not enough for the garden's owners - they wanted more!

"The old patio never got any sun, but the 'problem area' of grass next to it got plenty. As we hadn't worked out what we could do with our 'grassy knoll', we hoped we could make it part of the new patio and we would finally have a safe and sunny patio we could use each summer," explained John.

Nevertheless, most of the new patio would still never see sunshine. To brighten it up the owners went for Indian Stone, made up of various shades with a much lighter appearance than what had gone before.

"We had all the stone delivered by crane from the North West Paving Centre. When it was placed in small piles next to the site we could see immediately that the stone would be lighter - but at that point we didn't expect miracles - a north facing wall is always a north facing wall, after all!"