So, yesterday (Saturday) I got three of the four roof panels up. Today I did the fourth and final board. Although I don’t think it rained last night, it was foggy and wet this morning. All the boards already on the roof were affected; softened (and therefore more flexible), with areas where some individual strands were buckled from soaking up water. Not good!
Today, Sunday, I not only got the final panel in place, but also bought some very cheap plastic sheeting, from Boyes, as a temporary moisture barrier. I hope it’ll keep the boards safe over tonight. Then tomorrow I can collect some better thicker stuff from Screwfix in Peterborough – which I bought at the March Screwfix (but too late to collect from their Peterborough branch, where they had stock) – and attach it properly.
Striking a pose with my ‘Samurai’ saw!
Then there’ll be a layer of roofing felt. And then on top of that, the corrugated metal roofing which was the sheds original roof. 18mm OSB3, plastic sheet, felt, and a metal roof. That ought to do the job!
Whilst up on the new roof I had to continually brush off fallen leaves and twigs. So I took the opportunity to remove some dead wood and trim back the bits of tree branches that threatened to ‘ave somebody’s bloomin’ eye out’.
Earlier today I finally got around to starting the roof on shed #4. We bought the OSB3 boards some few weeks back. But since then there simply hasn’t been either the time, manpower, or appropriate weather conditions (too wet, and/or dark!), to ‘get it up’ (chortle!).
Perhaps unsurprisingly the shed itself has proven to be a little out of square. Meaning that the roofing panels don’t line up as precisely as one would’ve liked. But, hey-ho, ‘tis wadi ‘tis!
Looking towards the rear of the shed.
I’d gotten three panels in place when Chris, our fairly new neighbour – they moved in about a year ago – offered to help. I said ‘nah, I’m alright, ta’, as the real work had been moving the boards, and Teresa had already helped me do that, earlier in the day. I got some excellent Roughneck branded board carriers, which really helped when it came to moving the boards.
Chris then suggested a trip to’t local Wetherspoons pub. And I jumped at the opportunity. Poss’ my first social ‘drink with a mate’ scenario in three or more years! And that, as much as the roofing work, is what prompts this post. Here I am, back home, pissed. Bit of a hangover. Teresa a little miffed at my going out like (and for as long as) I did, etc. I certainly had too much to drink. Three pints and a double rum’n’coke.
Looking towards the front.
I do worry, on this head, as my dad, and his dad afore him, are/were alky-horlicks. And I don’t want to be one… no sir-ee, nor me neither! But, time and again, I drink too much. Fool that I am! It’s fun at the time. But what I really dislike is the aftermath.
Bloated, gassy, with a headache. All things I’m prone too anyway. And ‘Al Cahole’, famous Chicago prohibition-breaker, just exacerbates these conditions. Oh, and it also makes me more likely to do other dumb-ass shit like smoking. Or just gabbing a little too freely.
Garden looking pretty.
Anyhoo… back to’t shed. Teresa took some pics, whilst I toddled off to’t pub. The garden is looking rather autumnal. Which is geet luverly! I got three of four panels up today. The fourth got a bit butchered, annoyingly, thanks to my cheap/shite Titan router not working as effectively or reliably as it oughta.
So tomorrow, Sunday, I need to sort out the last panel – trim off the buggered edges – and get that up and fixed in place. Once all the panels are in situ, and screwed down, I’ll need to put further weather-proofing stuff on. I have an amount of roofing felt already. But not, I reckon, sufficient for the job. We shall see, I suppose.
Right, off to’t khazi for a beery wazz…
POSTSCRIPT
Working on the final roof board.
This last pic, above, is a bit out of sequence. But it at least captures the work in progress. I tried to route overlapping profiles, so as to more securely interlock the boards. But my cheap Titan router is, frankly, shite. And not up to the job, sadly. So I had to abandon that idea. The above pic is me preparing to cut off the botched (and incomplete) routed profile edge.
You can see the latter, Along the right edge of the board. The brown shiplap slat is screwed to the board to act as a guide/fence. I had to nip out and buy a new circular saw blade. I wound up getting a cheap set of three from the local ToolStation. Prob’ not good quality. But they allowed me to make the necessary cuts. Whereas the previous dull blade was simply binding mid-cut.
New draught-excluder curtain over the lounge to kitchen door.
Teresa’s been on at me for some time, asking that I put up more curtain poles and supports, mostly for doorway draught exclusion porpoises. Oh, and Teresa is making the curtains. So it’s a joint effort.
And we also have he added economic impetus of looking to rent a room, and needing to get the property as a whole up to snuff for sharing with a rent paying tenant. So we need, amongst a zillion other things, curtains in the bathroom.
I already did a draught-excluding curtain pole thingy in the kitchen some while ago. And I want all the ones I make around our home to share a design, which is based, I guess, at least to some degree, on the classic ‘ogee’ profile. Incidentally, I’m talking about the two pole supporting doodads!
Making these in the workshop is fun. Although that said, my workshop is in such an awful mess it’s not that much fun! There’s another ongoing project; the new shed, finishing the damn thing, and getting stuff moved into it! Using the router to create the profiles ‘caps’ was especially gratifying.
I did want them all to have curved grooves (is that ‘fluting?’) in the ogee profiles, so you’d get that classic, er… classical look, of fluted verticals surmounted by profiled ‘pediment’ (?) tops. The result is, as Teresa put it, a bit pedestal-like.
I like to paint all the house woodwork in oil-based gloss white. I just feel it’s a classic timeless style, and that it works well in Victorian properties like ours. So I’m doing so with these, inc. the poles, which are 22mm hardwood dowels.
The older yet unfinished kitchen/back door one.
Attaching the ornamental pole supports can be tricky , as getting wall-plugs in to walls reliably in old (or is that any?) homes is a challenge. Then there’s the depth of wood to get through in the wider top part. I’ve developed a method I’m happy with. And so far it’s worked well enough.
You can see on these thicker and as yet unplugged and uncapped kitchen ones the holes for the screws. These get filled with dowels, or just some filler. These kitchen ones are ticker than the others. So the ornamental caps will need to be bigger. Not gotten around to making them as yet!
The next sequence of four pictures shows how, despite masking around these fixtures, I tend to get white paint on the walls. And in this instance (in the lounge the original paint colour – Egyptian Cotton – still matches), rather annoyingly, the paint colour, Asian Silk, which is literally from the same paint pot, doesn’t match! Gaaah!
Later the same day…
Not so easy to see, on account of the use of transparent shower curtain (fabric curtain eventually get mouldy and disgusting!), with all the daylight flooding in! At least the blotchiness of the touched up paint is less noticeable.
A double layer of transparency protects our modesty.*
When I replaced the bath taps we inherited with the property with the shower mixer taps we now have – themselves now broken and in need of replacing (the new/replacement parts arrived today) – I took off the side of the bath housing, to access the plumbing.
That was ages (poss’ even years?) ago. And for a long time since we’ve had an open sided bath. And we started, inevitably, to stash stuff in the new space. We’re now being forced, economically, to consider letting our spare room again. So we’re having to address the rent-ability – or otherwise – of our home.
Relocated this. It needs a kick more paint!
Other bathroom bits ‘n’ pieces include: moving the home-made towel shelf, putting up three new little floating shelves, and moving out the metal shelving unit (that’ll most likely go in our new shed) trybat used to be by the radiator. The latter just accumulated clutter, and never really worked in the bathroom. Plus the humid conditions meant it got rusty!
Already full to overflowing!
These three floating shelves – pictured above and below – are useful Amazon Vine freebies. Not at all to my tastes aesthetically. But they do the job for now. And the job? Getting stuff up and off the window sill and the shelf next to the bath, all of which were overcrowded and really quite dizzz-gusting. So another small job is cleaning the vacated surfaces, and repainting where necessary.
Ought I to paint these little shelves?
Perhaps I should paint these three floaters? As much for mould-resistance and easy cleaning as to improve aesthetics.
I’ve also been making more little curtain pole hanging fittings, similar in style to some I made for the kitchen. I’ve made two so far, for the larger bathroom window. I need to make a good few more for elsewhere around the home, inc the smaller bathroom window, and – at Teresa’s request – for several draft-excluding curtains across a few doors.
Curtain pole support #1, left.
These were made from a batch of high quality marine-ply I got via Freecycle many, many moons ago. Useful stuff! Here they’re pictured having just been attached to the wall. Awaiting a few coats of oil-based high-gloss white paint.
I filled the screw-access holes on these with wooden plugs. Something I haven’t yet done with the similar pair in the kitchen. So that’s another job for the never-ending home/DIY list of tasks! I’d also like to embellish them all a bit, in a Victorian style. I have a few ideas for that!
Curtain pole support #2, right.
Teresa was a bit miffed with me for stopping her making some ordinary fabric curtains for the bathroom. but I think they need to be waterproof. Kitchen and bathroom curtains that ain’t waterproof or water-resistant/repellent quickly get mouldy and manky, and generally very dizzz-gusting!
In theory regular washing of said curtains might address this. But, 1) our washing machine (and now the plumbing to it, apparently), are jiggered, and 2) we hardly ever washed the kitchen curtain, with the result being it was mouldy and rank!
‘Tis Sunday. A day of rest! Or not. I was off to Screwfix early, and then back to the shed, doing lots of little bits of work. Such as filling in gaps in the cladding, as pictured above.
Either end of a ‘tie-beam’.
And I added a more or less horizontal tie-beam, to stop the middle of the shed, where, along the longer sides, two panels abut, to stop the shed bowing either outwards or inwards, and to keep it square/parallel.
The tie-beam viewed from the other end, later on in the day.
I was able to fill in most of the cladding gaps. But there are three places where I need longer pieces of cladding than any I currently have.
One of the remaining gaps.This is the longest missing piece And finally this one, at t’front.
Hopefully I can get these gaps filled soonish?
All the windows have now been washed. Including the only ‘original’ one that’s left, pictured below. I still think I’ll want to add more glass, as I want the workshop to be as well lit, naturally and electrically, as poss’.
The sole original window that remains.
And all the original doors have been re-attached, alongside the path. Including both the double ‘barn style’ doors, pictured immediately below. And the larger single one, down another pic. The latter opens and shuts just as it ought to.
These aren’t closing as they should!
As well as the doors above not quite closing aright, you can perhaps also see that I’ve had to add a temporary lower framing member. This is another of the myriad small jobs that needs properly finishing, ASAP.
I’d like to make the additional piece tie in as strongly as possible. Esp’ as it not really supported. Hmmm!? What joints shall I use? We shall see…
And below is a view from the pathway. Showing all the side doors back in situ. I’m tempted to remove the double doors altogether, as they’re not opening or closing quite as they should. And, what with the two larger doors – the new one in the front, and the other older one, closer to the camera in the above photo – they may very well be redundant anyway.
The two side passageway doors back in place.
Teresa and I are currently spending lots of our time at home our in the garden. During this heat wave we’ve mostly sought out the shadier spots. And one of these is the area under the tree that’s now behind the latest shed.
When we’re both home we’ll have our meals outside as well. It’s really rather lovely! And we’ve now got a good deal of choices, as to where exactly in the garden we might want to be. It’s such fun!
Yesterday I started opening up what was formerly just a window, with a view (geddit!?) to introducing a door instead.
The ‘before’ state.
And then today I actually got the door cut down to size and installed. It was a funny old process. I managed to size the door on the first cut. Unusual for me! And I had a load of plastic shims that were massively helpful in doing a better fit/install than most of my previous efforts with ‘Dianas’.
Viewed from inside.
I really like the warm glow in the above picture. The evening sunlight coming through the tree, the leaves dappling the honey coloured light… ‘tis lovely!
Lunching, whilst working.
Backtracking a bit, above was today’s luncheon break. French toast, sliced apple, and cream o’tomato soup. Yum! The door became a temp’ table, in the manner of Alan Partridge’s ‘Apache Solutions’ pitch to Dante’s Fireplaces (what’s the burning issue!?). Like Alan, I didn’t have a hat hard-on…
So, recapitulating the process:
A new opening is cut out.
The new opening was wider than the original window. So I had to add a new vertical structural member. And I didn’t have the exact right timber, to match the rest of the framing.
The internal view: note new right hand beam.Offering up the as yet un-trimmed door.
As you can see, in the above pic, the door was too tall. So I had to trim a few inches off the bottom. But luckily the bottom was oversized (ooh, matron!), so I could shave a bit off. And to finish, a side by side of before and after.
I’m very pleased with this change.
I’m chuffed with how this turned out. And I might also add windows at this end, poss’ even on both sides… Hmmm!?
Potential colour scheme?
And finally (again!), a potential colour scheme. On the left is ‘Wood Pigeon’, and on the right ‘Tell Me A Secret’. Both are Valspar, B&Q’s paint range. Which I really like. And I love the colour names. Silly, perhaps. But satisfying!
Yesterday I got the two back panels of the shed roughly in situ’. I kind of wanted to go further. But I didn’t have the right fixtures (coach-bolts!). So I ordered some from Screwfix.
They arrived today. So it was on with the show… This shot shows how the tree at the back of the Arden overhangs this newest shed.
Note the little brace, on the left panel. I had a few others in different places, just holding stuff roughly in plane. I did all this assembly on my own. It was quite tricky!
All the panels needed the bottom framing element – at the furthest end, above – replacing, as the shed was pretty old, and the bottom was a bit rotten in places (very rotten in some!). I did all that before assembly, except for this final panel.
I moved a few bits inside the shed, so I could work on it internally.
Got the larger of the two side doors in place. I’m not sure about retaining the doors in the long side, as that doesn’t suit our long narrow garden too well. I’ll come back to this later!
The longer and lower side of the shed, running along Sean’s – our northern neighbour’s – fence.
Note how the panel on the left has five verticals, whilst the one on the right had just four. Evidence of this being a self-build project, perhaps, by whoever made this shed originally?
This panel, originally the left of the shed, is what’s now the back, facing the far end of our long garden. I’m thinking about putting a pretty large window in. So we can see to the back of the garden, enjoy evening sunlight, and see the big old tree that’s only feet away.
This larger opening has two smaller doors that go in it. Again, I’m thinking I might change the layout a bit, in the fullness of time. These two doors are the last major components of the shed walking ‘as is’ that remain to do. Then there’s the roof and floor!
One of the new timbers is very obvious in the above image. Also worthy of note is that the window in this photo survived transit and re-assembly unbroken. Whereas the other window – below – didn’t!
Note another supporting brace, in the above picture. This was the right end, but is now the front facing aspect of the shed, that you see as you come down the garden. As can be seen in the next pic’, below.
There’s another highly visible new bit of timber along the bottom of the above panel. Plus the lowest piece of timber cladding on this face was rotten, and fell off/to bits! That’ll need replacing.
The whole shed might want shifting, about three or four inches towards the fence. I’ll defola need help doing that! But in the meantime, there’s a bit of a gap here.
The neighbours fence is falling down in places along this part. Is there sufficient gap, I wonder, to allow for minor repairs and weatherproofing painting/treatment?
The strip of garden south of the shed, ‘twixt the shed and Ruben and Anne’s garden is pretty narrow! If I can shift the whole shed towards Sean’s, we’ll gain a bit more space here. Albeit only three or four inches!
Teresa arrived home whilst I was chatting to Chris and his partner, our relatively new neighbours, at no. 66. She was really impressed that I’d ‘got it up’ all by my own! Not that you can tell that from this pic’.
Looking into the shed interior as we go down to the rear/far end of the garden.
Teresa’s approbation of my efforts is more visible here, methinks. Also visible here are the two doors yet to be affixed to the larger side openibg.
Looking back towards the house. My what a tight passage we have! If we can shift the whole shed back a few inches, it’ll help ease our passage…
This is the view, sat in our deckchairs, behind the shed, looking up at the venerable aulde tree, around 7pm this evening. What a beauty, eh!?
So, sometimes it really does pay to be a scavenging hoarder! This old door, a Freecycle acquisition going back four or five years, perhaps, is going to be ideal – with some judicious trimming – as the new front door, probably roughly where I’ve leaned it in the above picture
Further work on the railway sleepers, raising them up out of the dirt on gravel. Which I should’ve done from the off. Making a rod to beat myself with there, eh!?
Wearing a mask due to the dust raised whilst doing the work. It’s hard heavy work. Back bent as I dig or rake the soil out of the way. Then raising the sleepers, then putting three bags of gravel down, and raking that lot that flat.
I actually quite the aesthetics of the speckled dirt on my skin, with the hair over it all! Am I weird!? In real life – at least as I perceive it – qin the sunshine and dappled shade, my skin is more bronzed and hair more golden than in these photos.
Anyway, all six sleepers are now an inch or two higher than before, with gravel underneath each of them. They’re still level (enough for my satisfaction, and hopefully enough for keeping the shed square?) in both directions.
Four sleepers done…
The whole lot seemed to move a couple of inches eastwards, towards the house. Actually that’s alright. As the final sleeper was a bit further apart than all the others. So having them shuffling along a bit has wound up with them all better spaced.
One annoying thing is that I’ve referenced a the sleepers off a splash-board on the neighbours (very dilapidated) fence. If this is misaligned, as it probably is, then all my sleepers are as well. I was actually aware of this from the start. But couldn’t be arsed trying to remedy it.
All six raised on gravel.
Just went and got more Facebook/Gumtree free gravel! Yesterday I went to Bourne (Lincs), twice, and got twenty bags. From a nice Latvian chap. And today I got two big plastic tubs full, plus one bag, from Upwell area, a little closer to home.
I decided to scoop aside the earth along the sides of the sleepers and infill more gravel, so they’re not just sat on gravel, but in gravel. Hoping this’ll better protect them form moisture, to some extent. Will it? I really don’t know!
Gravel along the sleeper edges. House end view.And viewed from the far end.
Anyway, that’s enough work on that lot for today! Yesterday and today have been, for me at least, pretty hardcore, in terms of exhausting energy sapping hard physical labour. So, to end, one last ‘go ahead, make my day,’ Dirty Hairy moment…
Today I brought the infill levels up between the sleepers, with earth from either side of where the shed is. I also popped over to Wisbech and bought four bags of large bark-chips, for a path along the southern edge of the shed/garden.
Raising the infill levels.
I also did a good chunk of my Stick Control Summer Challenge. I’ve been doing a page a day most days I’ve done it. I need to be doing more than one page a day to finish before next term starts!
There has been change, even if not discernibly so!
I didn’t take any more sleeper pics. Or rather, more accurately, I did. But they don’t show the progress I made. I basically levelled the sleepers better, and raised the soul with the spaces. Esp’ along the edge that’s going to be the footpath, along Ruben and Anne’s side (the left as you look away from the houses!).
I’m trying to maintain the FODMAP diet. And I’m convinced that my tummy is less distended than formerly. I’m not sure I’ve lost much if any weight. I just think I’m carrying a little less gas around in my guts! Sometimes it’s hard to be motivated over food choices. That’s when any diet is at greatest risk.
Today’s lunch. Sausage omelette (!?) and salad.
Today I made a three-egg omelette, with two Heck sausages (high meat content, no gluten containing cereals or dairy content!), fried in olive oil and chopped up. The orange cubes are Red Leicester cheese. I’m glad I can still have cheese, as I love it. I just have to keep portions small.
The salad was a leftover from yesterdays dinner. And speaking of leftovers, our dinner tonight was the remains of Satay #2, with the addition of rice, edamame beans and water chestnuts, some Thai red curry sauce and gluten free soy-sauce, all drizzled with lime juice.
Both lunch and dinner were, thankfully, delicious, nutritious, and FODMAP friendly.
I’ve even started to add some little bits of exercise into my daily routines. I’ve started doing timed squats. The idea is to work up to 30 days of 30 mins (in smaller bite sized chunks) squatting on flat feet. And I want to add some free hanging in to the mix as well…
I’m trying to cultivate other good habits. For example I’m doing a Stick Control ‘Summer Challenge’: trying to do at least a page a day of Stone’s ancient but venerable tome. Hopefully by summer’s end I’ll have finished the whole book?
