Easter Weekend

Yesterday was Good Friday. So in true DIY spirit, I spent the 'day off' - ok - the morning really - cutting the hedge.

We have a tall, probably 2, maybe 2 and a bit metre high hedge running down the entire length of one side of our property, and a shorter, I would say 1.3m high hedge running the length from the front of the property to the end of the house on the other side.  We have fantastic neighbours who keep their sides, and the tops nicely trimmed. We on the other hand, are useless at trimming our sides and the result is usually plain to see!

You see, I generally leave it to DIY-impaired husband to do - I don't see it as DIY. I see it as general upkeep, which is his department, like weeding etc. But having gotten sick of it not being done over the Christmas break when he was off for four weeks, and wanting to move my shed this weekend, I decided there was only one thing for it. Doing it myself.

One of my grizzling 'helpers' helping clear up the aftermarth

It was the first time I'd cut the hedges at this house. It wasn't a very long or arduous job though, took an hour or so, with a break for putting Red to bed with a milky in between. The clean up still remains however. I made the mistake of enlisting the two big kids to help. One prefered to hunt for crickets in the aftermath of the hedge trimming, the other kept telling me he needed a rest every two seconds. I eventually threw my hands in the air and told them to go inside and have some lunch because I was sick to death of hearing them grizzle! *Note to self: Purchase leaf rake - our neighbour from our last house still has ours!

More of a 'before' pic looking down towards the front of the section.

Today (Saturday) on the DIY front, I got my Mum to come over. We emptied out the shed and got the DIY-impaired husband to give us a hand with some muscle, he stood inside it, lifted at the beam inside and we guided it onto the platform from opposite corners.

The shed resting on it's new foundation with DIY-impaired husband inside, 

doing what exactly, I'm not sure!

I screwed it securely to the pallet platform/floor - wahey! We wriggled and jiggled it around a bit until some of the side panels that had come away were back where they were supposed to be in the channels at the top and bottom, and then with Mum inside the shed and me outside, she held the small piece of wood I gave her, against the metal as a chock, while I screwed it together from the outside. I went around and fixed anything else back into place that had come adrift.

The flashing in place!

Then it was time to fix the flashings on the roof. I love that my new Gorilla ladder is so versatile, I felt quite safe up it with the legs at different heights! I did one side to the middle, then had to clear away some of the hedge cuttings, and use the loppers on some of the hedge to cut of bits that were protruding  so I could get the ladder in the other side. I then fixed the flashing back on at that side to the middle! When I had put the shed together initially, I didn't fix the flashing on properly because a) I was much larger than I am today and was scared I was going to break something (like the shed or the ladder!) and b) my ladder was already rickety and I was aware that my father had fallen off of it once and it was a bit wonky.

Ramsay the ginger hard at work 'helping' by sleeping in the grass catcher!

Around that time, I sent the DIY-impaired husband off on a carpet collection run. I had managed to get a free square of carpet from Freecycle, this was to be used on the floor, not to make it pretty, but to make it more functional - I didn't want things falling through the floor! Once he arrived home, Red had decided it was time for a sleep, so I headed inside and left Mum and the two big kids to put the carpet down in the shed, and as it turns out, they also loaded everything else back in too!

The shed with it's back back on, manky carpet down, and most things moved back in.

After Mum left, when I had gotten Red to sleep, I did a bit of a tidy up in there, but it still isn't quite the way I want it. I will need to build the window seat for my room first, so I can empty out the cupboard I want to put in there.

Door attached - viola! We have a fully functioning shed again!

While cutting the hedge yesterday, I also rediscovered the old workbench top that was in the shed we demolished almost as soon as we moved in. It is a bit long for the shed, but I will probably build a frame for it and cut the ends off so it can become a useful workbench again.

Now that the sun has come out, plans for the afternoon include cutting the rest of the grass and enjoying the sun with the kids.

Happy Easter everyone!

The Saga Continues: The Gate, The (almost) Final Chapter

For the last month or thereabouts, our front gate has been annoying me.

First I had to replace the hinges. This did not work, due to the ridiculously small size of the accessible wood and rusty metal frame, I had to buy silly piddly sized hinges. Unsurprisingly, it came off of these hinges. On the bright side, I had to buy some taps to get some dead screws out, and will now forever own taps :)

These are taps - no, not the kind that water comes out of, they are to remove damaged screws.

Next I replaced the hinges with slightly more heavy duty hinges, and used decent treated screws, made for outdoor use in pine. Then the wood totally split and the entire gate became as what we call 'totally shagged'

The gate is currently leaning precariously against the fence post. We can kind of use it, in a pinch, if it is propped up with a brick and latched to the magnetic childproof latch. Not exactly ideal with a 23 month old Red to consider!

Totally fed up, I went to Bunnings the other day (I actually went in for a sheet of plywood for my carpentry class project) and asked what they could sell me in a pre-made gate, as I didn't really think I had the time to make my own. The man at Bunnings wasn't terribly helpful. They didn't have any. He didn't offer me any other options. So I bought my ply and left.

This morning however, I decided I would go and check out what Mitre 10 Mega had to offer me in the pre-made gate department. Sadly the only one they had was 200mm too small. So he suggested I could just buy the palings and some wood and make one. So that is exactly what I did! Well, sort of.

I had him cut the two pieces of wood to size for me (while he did, I introduced Red to a forklift), he then asked if my husband would be able to sort out the crossbearer himself, I laughed and said that my husband would not be going anywhere near it until it was hung in the gap! He smiled and asked if I had a handsaw to cut it myself. I said I did. He then carried it all out to the car for me and suggested I buy 45mm screws, gave me the bit of paper to pay on. I thanked him and he was on his way! Now THAT is what I call service! Just because I am a woman carrying a small child does not mean I don't know how to weald a power tool!

The back of my car, full of wood and Girl Guide biscuits.

So, home after a morning out to entertain Red, when she was in bed, I went and retrieved the wood from my car. I laid it all out on my bedroom floor in the sun, and got to work. I had screwed both end pickets to the two pieces of framing wood and had started laying out the others to work out the space when Mr DIY-impaired left for work. Soon after I had all of the bottom end screwed on. About then Red woke up and got out of bed and came in to project manage for me.

The beginnings of my new, extra-wide gate.

She looked after my other drill (I decided that taking out the battery would make it lighter for her, and would also just make sure she didn't drill anything she oughtn't, like her own hand!) and tried to put a screw in it as a bit while I screwed the other ends of the pickets on.

Trying to put a screw in the chuck

Lighter without the battery in the drill

Red through the gate offering me some of her lunch

I flipped the new gate over and marked where I needed to cut the crossbearer and went to find my handsaw. But wait... who has moved my saw? It isn't where I left it! In fact, it is nowhere to be found! I called the DIY-impaired husband to enquire of its whereabouts. He said 'it's probably in the shed' Ha! Maybe it is, but that shed is such a shitfight, I'm not taking Red in there to help me find it. He says he will go and find it for me tomorrow before he goes to work. We'll see.

All marked and ready to cut, when Mr DIY-Impaired fetches the saw from parts unknown

I'm very pleased with my gate so far, it looks nice, it's rather heavy - I may need to get some bigger more industrial looking hinges, as I fear the others I bought last week are a bit too piddly. We shall see though.

Getting around to it

'I have been meaning to do something about the front gate for a while now'

We all have those things that we put up with that we want to do something about, right? Was it Mitre 10 a while ago who had an ad where the husband was a builder and the wife finally got sick of him working on other peoples houses and not their own that she started doing it herself? Then one weekend she gave him a present, it was round and she told him it was a ' to it'. I believe I need a round 'to it' as well ;)

Our front gate has been one of those jobs for months now. I was pretty sure I just needed to replace the knackered, rusty old screws with new ones, I just needed to find the time. This morning, I finally had a little time without Red (she was asleep - oh rapture!!) so I fossicked through my screws until I found 6 the same, nice shiny,long, fat screws.

New drill in hand, I went out to the gate, started at the top and removed one and replaced one, removed one, replaced one, and again. Excellent! The gate will now swing open and closed, even with my magnetic childproof lock I can open it with one hand and a foot :)

I moved on to the bottom screws, but wait... Damn, first one was so knackered, it snapped right off! A problem, I thought. Moved on to the next one, uh-oh, same deal. I didn't even try with the bottom one. Buggeration! I guess I need to replace the whole hinge (also pretty rusty and knackered)

Oh well. My gate, though several screws are now broken, is in better working order than it was before. Must nearly be time for a trip to Mitre 10!