Twenty Three
Thursday dawns wet and windy – not a good day for shed-putting-up. I wake at 5, listening vaguely to the pelting rain and a distant alarm which has obviously been set off by the windy weather. The heating tries to start, despite the fact that it’s too early, and then the heating and the alarm both stop abruptly. Power cut? I try the radio… yep, the power’s out. So how, exactly, am I going to produce bacon butties and hot tea for shed builders who’ve been on the road for 4 hours… I lie in bed and Come Up With A Plan. There’ll be enough residual heat in the Aga for the first round of tea and butties, then I can boil kettles and fill flasks, and cook the beef for sandwiches at mums, and we can drive the soup (made but not blended yet) up to Guy’s to work the blender. Good grief! At 6 the power comes back on, so my plans aren’t needed – I could have slept the last hour after all… At 6.30 I ring Guy – he’s so full of cold that he’s stayed at his house – and he walks down in the dark. The boys (Keith the Boss, Gary and James) sensibly turn up in the light just after 8 and manage to drive up the lane – hooray! We show them where we’ve left a section of fence missing so that they can carry the panels down the slope, and then we fill them with bacon butties and cups of tea.
They start bringing the panels down the slope – it is pouring with rain (and has been for two days) and the slope is mud and wet leaves – very skiddy. The boys good-naturedly rib each other about who’s going to fall over first, and whether we can video it and post it on You Tube… (for the record, it was James. Three times.)
The shed is all beautifully made in panels, so very soon we have the largest flat pack we’ve ever seen.
Everything is labelled and the boys start with the back corners, then the sides, then the front. In no time at all we have a roofless shed!
Then the internal stud wall goes up – we can’t really call it a stud wall as it’s clad in wood and has a gorgeous door in it. James and Keith are now in the storage room bit, and the lock’s jammed itself in transit, so they’re locked in, much to their amusement. Gary calls out to make sure they’ve got enough air… there’s no roof on it yet!
Then very quickly the roof sections go on.
It’s STILL raining, and the boys are getting soaked and covered in mud – we phone mum who whizzes off to Asda to buy tracksuit bottoms in case a change of clothes is needed – and now they’ve got to the tricky bit.
They have to clamber around on the roof to put the felt on. In the rain. With incredible patience and the same endless good humour and banter, they crack on with the felt.
I remark to Gary that they’re incredibly good natured, and he says it’s due to a lack of intelligence… we think not!
Once the felt is on the boys come indoors out of the rain for lunch (hot beef rolls and homemade soup) and then they’re back out again – the rain has eased to a mild drizzle, but it’s cold. They screw the shed to the floor, make some minor adjustments to the doors, and we’re done! WOO HOO! We have a SHED! I text a photo to Jo back in my office, who says it’s so gorgeous I could move Guy in before Christmas… The boys leave at about 4 – that’s a helluva long day! They left Essex at 4, and won’t get home before 8, and they had to slither and slide around all day in the mud, rain and gloom, yet they were endlessly good natured, funny and polite. Wish we had space for another shed to have them back…
Once they’re gone, Guy and I don’t really know what to do. Eventually we decide to go and properly admire the shed. So we take a bottle of champagne and two plastic glasses, and a torch, and off we go. We have a really good look round and agree it is utterly beautiful. We start talking about where the lighting should go, and the electric sockets, and whether we need ceiling lights (we think we don’t) and the log burning stove in the corner… We’ll plaster three walls, but because the stud wall is finished so beautifully just woodstain it in a lovely colour. Then there’ll be the wood floor…. It’s going to be just gorgeous! I think we’ll be fighting over who gets to go and sit in it…
Yes, I know, splodgy photo. Did I mention it was raining?
On Saturday Wyn the Wire and Mrs Wyn visit for lunch so we can chat electrics. We agree on lighting (that’s ‘agree’ as in we say what we want and Wyn the Wire tells us whether it’s possible or not. It’s possible, which is good). We chat about some sort of background heating, and an outside light, and Wyn tells us that we can do the ‘first fix’ ourselves. WOO HOO! That’s ‘first fix’ as in what they talk about on Grand Designs. This is, like, your actual building stuff! We are ridiculously excited, and Wyn is going to send us a shopping list so that I can go to the nice leccy wholesalers near work and negotiate a discount… He also draws us a very good plan of what goes where. We believe we can do it.
On Sunday I (probably unreasonably) say that I would like to put my Christmas tree up some time this side of Christmas, and where it needs to go is currently Full of Flooring.
We have a plan… we’ll move it to the pool cabin, de-nail it and stack it neatly. It is currently in a large heap, and it will definitely stack better once it is de-nailed. We start.
As the Burberry factory was set up in 1939 (making clothing, although Burberry only moved there later), the nails are nearly 70 years old, mostly rusty and incredibly long. My first nail takes me 10 minutes… so I get the nail point thingy that you hammer (can’t remember the name of it) and use that – much better, except now I spend all my time getting the nail point thingy that you hammer out of the board having hammered it in too far. Guy is much quicker. Then someone (probably me) says wouldn’t it be A Good Idea to clean the tongues and grooves of accumulated crap while we’re de-nailing the boards. There is seven decades of varnish, grime and wax on them. So we get the chisels out. Dumb idea or what?
This slows us down hugely, and after 3 hours we have precisely this much to show for it. And the pile in the sitting room looks just the same size as it was before we started…
I have hammered all my knuckles and my knees, and Guy is just stiff all over from staying in the same position for too long… Whose idea was it to buy reclaimed floorboards?? At some point we think that maybe sharper chisels would be a good idea, and we have a break to get new chisels, ink for the printer, brandy to cure mum’s cold and to visit Karen. When we get back it’s dark and the lights in the pool shed, though pretty, are rubbish for seeing anything. We think chiselling in the dark might be dangerous, so we just wallop more nails out instead. We pull out a total of 472 nails!
Actually, we have no idea how many we pulled out – the question is ‘shall we count how many nails we’ve done, or shall we go indoors for a gin and tonic?’ So we didn’t count nails…
Achieved: We have a SHED. And very beautiful it is too.
Hours worked: Can’t count the hours the boys did on Thursday, and Guy and I did about 4 each on the floorboards on Sunday.
Pressies: Three pairs of spare trackie bottoms from mum, dalek key ring for Guy (from me) to put his shed key on.
Purchases: A shed. And excellent value it is too!
Wildlife update: Performing squirrels much admired by all our visitors this week. They are really fluffy now. The squirrels, not the visitors…
Drink: Yes thank you, lots. We did do quite a bit of celebrating…
Shed: Did we mention it’s GORGEOUS?!
Tip of the week: If you’ve been knocking crap off floorboards and want to get the grime off your face before going to the shops, simply lick your palms and rub your cheeks. Quicker than cleanser, and can be done on the move. Beauty products are overrated anyway…
They start bringing the panels down the slope – it is pouring with rain (and has been for two days) and the slope is mud and wet leaves – very skiddy. The boys good-naturedly rib each other about who’s going to fall over first, and whether we can video it and post it on You Tube… (for the record, it was James. Three times.)
The shed is all beautifully made in panels, so very soon we have the largest flat pack we’ve ever seen.
Everything is labelled and the boys start with the back corners, then the sides, then the front. In no time at all we have a roofless shed!
Then the internal stud wall goes up – we can’t really call it a stud wall as it’s clad in wood and has a gorgeous door in it. James and Keith are now in the storage room bit, and the lock’s jammed itself in transit, so they’re locked in, much to their amusement. Gary calls out to make sure they’ve got enough air… there’s no roof on it yet!
Then very quickly the roof sections go on.
It’s STILL raining, and the boys are getting soaked and covered in mud – we phone mum who whizzes off to Asda to buy tracksuit bottoms in case a change of clothes is needed – and now they’ve got to the tricky bit.
They have to clamber around on the roof to put the felt on. In the rain. With incredible patience and the same endless good humour and banter, they crack on with the felt.
I remark to Gary that they’re incredibly good natured, and he says it’s due to a lack of intelligence… we think not!
Once the felt is on the boys come indoors out of the rain for lunch (hot beef rolls and homemade soup) and then they’re back out again – the rain has eased to a mild drizzle, but it’s cold. They screw the shed to the floor, make some minor adjustments to the doors, and we’re done! WOO HOO! We have a SHED! I text a photo to Jo back in my office, who says it’s so gorgeous I could move Guy in before Christmas… The boys leave at about 4 – that’s a helluva long day! They left Essex at 4, and won’t get home before 8, and they had to slither and slide around all day in the mud, rain and gloom, yet they were endlessly good natured, funny and polite. Wish we had space for another shed to have them back…
Once they’re gone, Guy and I don’t really know what to do. Eventually we decide to go and properly admire the shed. So we take a bottle of champagne and two plastic glasses, and a torch, and off we go. We have a really good look round and agree it is utterly beautiful. We start talking about where the lighting should go, and the electric sockets, and whether we need ceiling lights (we think we don’t) and the log burning stove in the corner… We’ll plaster three walls, but because the stud wall is finished so beautifully just woodstain it in a lovely colour. Then there’ll be the wood floor…. It’s going to be just gorgeous! I think we’ll be fighting over who gets to go and sit in it…
Yes, I know, splodgy photo. Did I mention it was raining?
On Saturday Wyn the Wire and Mrs Wyn visit for lunch so we can chat electrics. We agree on lighting (that’s ‘agree’ as in we say what we want and Wyn the Wire tells us whether it’s possible or not. It’s possible, which is good). We chat about some sort of background heating, and an outside light, and Wyn tells us that we can do the ‘first fix’ ourselves. WOO HOO! That’s ‘first fix’ as in what they talk about on Grand Designs. This is, like, your actual building stuff! We are ridiculously excited, and Wyn is going to send us a shopping list so that I can go to the nice leccy wholesalers near work and negotiate a discount… He also draws us a very good plan of what goes where. We believe we can do it.
On Sunday I (probably unreasonably) say that I would like to put my Christmas tree up some time this side of Christmas, and where it needs to go is currently Full of Flooring.
We have a plan… we’ll move it to the pool cabin, de-nail it and stack it neatly. It is currently in a large heap, and it will definitely stack better once it is de-nailed. We start.
As the Burberry factory was set up in 1939 (making clothing, although Burberry only moved there later), the nails are nearly 70 years old, mostly rusty and incredibly long. My first nail takes me 10 minutes… so I get the nail point thingy that you hammer (can’t remember the name of it) and use that – much better, except now I spend all my time getting the nail point thingy that you hammer out of the board having hammered it in too far. Guy is much quicker. Then someone (probably me) says wouldn’t it be A Good Idea to clean the tongues and grooves of accumulated crap while we’re de-nailing the boards. There is seven decades of varnish, grime and wax on them. So we get the chisels out. Dumb idea or what?
This slows us down hugely, and after 3 hours we have precisely this much to show for it. And the pile in the sitting room looks just the same size as it was before we started…
I have hammered all my knuckles and my knees, and Guy is just stiff all over from staying in the same position for too long… Whose idea was it to buy reclaimed floorboards?? At some point we think that maybe sharper chisels would be a good idea, and we have a break to get new chisels, ink for the printer, brandy to cure mum’s cold and to visit Karen. When we get back it’s dark and the lights in the pool shed, though pretty, are rubbish for seeing anything. We think chiselling in the dark might be dangerous, so we just wallop more nails out instead. We pull out a total of 472 nails!
Actually, we have no idea how many we pulled out – the question is ‘shall we count how many nails we’ve done, or shall we go indoors for a gin and tonic?’ So we didn’t count nails…
Achieved: We have a SHED. And very beautiful it is too.
Hours worked: Can’t count the hours the boys did on Thursday, and Guy and I did about 4 each on the floorboards on Sunday.
Pressies: Three pairs of spare trackie bottoms from mum, dalek key ring for Guy (from me) to put his shed key on.
Purchases: A shed. And excellent value it is too!
Wildlife update: Performing squirrels much admired by all our visitors this week. They are really fluffy now. The squirrels, not the visitors…
Drink: Yes thank you, lots. We did do quite a bit of celebrating…
Shed: Did we mention it’s GORGEOUS?!
Tip of the week: If you’ve been knocking crap off floorboards and want to get the grime off your face before going to the shops, simply lick your palms and rub your cheeks. Quicker than cleanser, and can be done on the move. Beauty products are overrated anyway…
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