On Saturday Luke came up ostensibly to jack up and level the garden shed. That task was done in a flash, so he sorted out the sticking windows - WD40 on the hinges and catches, plenty of jerking them back and forth and they are pretty much sorted. Then on to adjusting the hinges on one door of the pantry - fixed in a jiffy - so fast there was no time to take photos.
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| Levering and jacking up the front |
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| Digging a trench around the bottom to make sure there is air clearance |
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| Level, Marilyn? Good enough! |
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| WD-40 - magic in a can! |
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| Joe in his ie lavalava, muffins made, coffee brewed and served outside in the lovely morning sunshine |
Joe had made the muffins (chocolate chip) and over morning tea Luke and I decided that there was plenty of time to get the capital works programme complete. Measuring done (I was entrusted with that job and the subsequent calculations) and it was off to the timber yard. The guy there was very pleased that Luke did all the sorting and lifting of the timber we needed, so he threw in a 1200mm offcut of a post. We needed it for Luke to rip down and bolt on to the mother of a concrete post at the end of the fence line - result!
While Luke dismantled the front wire fence I took down the manky trellis
near the dining room. Then construction started with Luke ripping out a
redundant concrete post and getting two wooden posts in the ground and
concreted in. Just in case you think we left Luke to do all the work,
you need to know that I was getting in the way by grubbing out the
periwinkle and its root systems in the front garden - Rob had sprayed it
but it is pretty determined and was making a comeback. And David spent
about an hour deconstructing the wire fence - removing the 3 strainer
strands then rolling the netting up so it would fit in the wheelie bin
(I am interested to see today if the binmen empty the bin or leave it -
Yes it's empty!)
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| Getting to this point has taken about half an hour - removing the strands was tortuous. Once that was done, rolling it up was a cinch |
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| This is the mother of a post - not visible is the strainer post wedged in its side. By the way, the post is the concrete - the other feature in the photo is Luke ... |
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| The redundant concrete post lies mournfully on the ground - smashed by the sledge hammer |
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| The posts are in and braced, concrete is in place and it's time for lunch while it goes off |
While the concrete went off it was deemed appropriate to take a lunch break, and I was in charge of that as Joe had headed off with some of the muffins to visit David's aged aunt down in Tawa and the remainder were in the freezer for David to take to his mum's the following day. I channelled Joe as I prepared roast pork and hot gravy sandwiches for David and Luke - Joe would never just serve up an ordinary sandwich, and I have to keep the standards up. So out I went to pick some lettuce leaves, sliced up cucumber, tomato, orange pepper, sliced the meat and heated the leftover gravy. Then the open sandwich assembly with photographs to show Joe how well he has taught me.
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| Sandwich construction commences |
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| Meat is added - roast pork |
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| Gravy added, served outside in the sunshine - lunch got the seal of approval |
Back on task and my job was to make sure the top paling was level, and then hold the palings in place with the separator piece while Luke nail-gunned them into position. That was fine when he was one or two
posts away, but when it was occurring within a couple of inches of my
fingers I felt just a trifle vulnerable. However the fact I am typing
this means I am not secured to the fence, eh?
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| Posts shortened and three palings up. You can also see the results of my periwinkle removal between the small hibiscus plants |
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| Almost done - one more paling and trimming the ends off |
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| Last paling about to be nailed in place - everyone should have a nail gun, I reckon! |
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| Then it was time to trim the top off the concrete post - mark it up |
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| Out with the concrete saw, on with the earmuffs |
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| It's a dusty business |
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| Is Luke in there somewhere? |
When the fence was done, we did the trellis - same process but only used the 2x1 palings this time.
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| I'd removed the diamond trellis |
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| Last couple of horizontals ready to go on and vertical batten waiting to be measured up |
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| Last one, then trim off the left hand edge and put a vertical batten behind in the centre |
Luke - he's the man! All done by 4pm - amazing stuff.
2 comments:
Still makes me laugh that you sold your old house so you would have less to do. See how that worked out. Xxxxx
Ah yes, but wouldn't you have liked to been there for that lunch? And as I said in a previous post, this redecoration/capital works programme is far less arduous than the stuff we did at Cherswud. It should all be done by this time next year and then it'll be a life of leisure! And I'll probably get bored, dammit!
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