Tiled
October 2, 2008 | Leave a Comment |
The roof of the shed is tiled. And just in time, I might say. Today the slaters defied some 60 mpu gales and finished almost all of the slating. The heavy winds were already trying to rip off the carefully fitted roof felt. Tomorrow the ridge tiles will go on and the finally the gaps between the outer slates and the barge boards need to be filled with silicone. Remaining jobs in order of priority: fit a door, finish the floorboards, connect electricity.
We also started work on our property in Glendale, which is going to be a holiday let. All old junk has been removed and most has been burned: mattresses, old sofas, old cupboards, old sheets of v-lining, curtains etc. In the close by shed we have deposited old carpets, old sheets of vinyl, and more. We even found some lead covered wires, letters from previous owners dating back to 1945 and an old catalog, almost like the first incarnation of the Argos catalog. Once the stripping is completed we’ll have a good think about the future partitioning of the property.
Rough casting
September 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment |
In the ongoing battle to keep the cost for heating down, we decided to fit the kitchen with a wood burning stove. The kitchen is quite big, with a vaulted ceiling and we spend quite some time in it as it also has a family/dining area. Anyway, next week a specialist from MacDonald brothers (a local builder) will come by to discuss the possibilities and the cost.
On the shed: the first steps of the finishings have been taken as Ben and Joel came by yesterday and today to do the rough casting. This is a two staged process: first a scratch coat and then the finishing layer with the stone chips. For the seconds stage the first coat needs to be really dry otherwise it will just glide off, so only the front gable was finished today. Ben will return after his holiday to finish the job. I will put some pictures up tomorrow as now the front gable is covered with a protective sheet of plastic to prevent the rain from washing it down.
The roof
August 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment |
Today I finished the first part of boarding the roof. I started yesterday and finished today at about 3pm. Never thought that banging in nails would give such a muscle ache… I was able to do the job without scaffolding although Simon was so good to give me 3 more bays of his. I’ll need those once the tiles go up.
Tomorrow: finish the gables (yuk, I’m fed up with mixing mortar…), attach metal strips from gables to rafters to increase structural integrity and start with the second part of the sarking boards.
Beyond that: roof felt, facia’s and soffits, outside rendering, painting, door, electricity, inside finish
Weather: totally summer (I got another sun burn), blue skies, sunshine, lovely cool sea breeze (no midges, hurray!!!)
Little bit of cheating
August 7, 2008 | 2 Comments |
The front gable is done. I’m really happy with it… it looks, well… just like a real shed. Or should I say garage?? The scaffolding has been dismantled and moved to the backside to build up the back gable. I nailed the first sarking boards on the top, just to get a feeling whether the lot would fit, and it did.
I discovered one little blemish though, which made me cheat a bit. The front pair of rafters are not completely level. The effect of this was that the ladders would show more overhang at the bottom than at the top. After some thinking I cheated by removing the front piece of timber of the ladders and adjust the steps of the ladder in such a way that the overhang is the same from top to bottom. Are you with me?? So in stead of parallel ladders, I now have ladders that are wider at the top than at the bottom. It’s not much of a problem as this will all be covered up by the sarking boards and the roof will still look good…
As you can see on the photo, the weather was spectacular: blue skies, lovely breeze, sunny, no midges(!!)
Almost there…
July 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment |
The roof frame is nearly finished. There’s a couple of things I need to sort now. The front and end rafter set need to have the so called steps installed. Basically these are just two pairs of 4”x2” rafters with noggings (steps) between them to create the overhanging effect of the roof. See the photo of a prepped ladder to get an impression of the ting.
Once these are nailed to the outer rafter set, I can move on with nailing down the sarking boards (the actual planks that will cover the roof). Once they’re on, the roof structure can be finished off with facia’s and soffet boards. I’m trying to get as close a match as I can with the design of the house, so the whole thing will blend in really well.
Then, there will be the remaining challenge of the gables. I will definitely need some scaffolding to complete that job. Luckily I can borrow a bay of scaffolding from Simon.
Just a little side note on our Jingles: Over the past weeks I’ve trained him to behave better around sheep. Much to my astonishment he’s now capable of completely ignoring sheep, as long as I keep his attention. We can even pass a flock at a distance of about 10 meters or less. Weeks ago he would have chased them full steam. So, having that in mind we decided to let him out tonight with the chicken roaming free. And again, he didn’t let us down. He did try to get near them and have a “dog inspection” but a short “Ah Ah!” got his attention and then he just ignored the hens. Good boy!!
Weather: HOT(!!) and cloudy but later sunny. The picture of the roof frame was taken at about 6pm.
The fisherman and the pond
July 21, 2008 | 4 Comments |
The fisherman would come to the same pond every day. He never caught anything but he still kept coming back. Not that the fisherman was stupid, he just kept being tempted. By stories he heard in his pub, by talking to his friends and also probably just by looking at that magnificent pond. There surely must be fish in there! The crystal clear water, the green lush plants growing along the sides of the pond, the stately trees creating his favorite shady spot and the acres and acres of soft sloping fields surrounding the pond. It was almost heaven… for a fisherman. One day there would surely be a big catch for him. And the fisherman kept walking the walk to the pond, assembling his rod and sitting on his chair staring at the line… But no fish… not a twitch in the line. Just calm water…
Where does this story go you might wonder? Well nowhere. It just popped up in my brain after receiving another email from Screwfix for massive discounts on items I recently bought and a bonus discount of 10% on any ordered item. The fisherman, that’s me. The pond… that’s the Screwfix catalog and website. The fish…??? Those are the deals I see announced in Screwfix’s emails, every time just a couple of days after I put my order in… and like the fisherman I keep coming back…
On the shed: all the rafters are up which is good. It starts looking like the real thing I suppose. Next step will be sawing and fixing horizontal braces (4”x2”) on each rafter pair just below the central ridge to add extra strength.
Weather: started out really nice but now overcast with a little rain. Cold.
Rafters
July 19, 2008 | 4 Comments |
Today was another milestone in my novice building career. I managed to fix no less than 10 rafters and the center ridge. It took quite a bit of struggling - due to the rather strong winds - but the end result was great.
After fitting two pairs I decided to fix a temporary cross brace (you can see it sticking out at the top of the roof) as the wind made the wobbly character of the construction quite apparent. The brace immediately made the structure extremely rigid. Maybe the brace should become part of the final structure. I will decide once all the rafters are fitted.
As everything fitted really well, I decided to fix all prepped rafters and by 6:00pm the thing looked like the situation on the photo.
Tomorrow I will saw the remaining rafters…
Weather: sunny during most parts of the day, two or three showers which required immediate evacuation, northerly winds, nippy when cloudy…
Dead men standing
July 18, 2008 | 2 Comments |
Today was a lovely day! So, a good day to continue work on the roof of the shed. As I’m pretty uncomfortable with heights I had to find a solution for accessing the roof without the need to tiptoe over the joists. I decided to put down some of the sarking boards. That took the better part of the morning.
After that I finalized the sawing of the four rafters I had prepared and moved them up the roof. Then, I constructed two dead men - a builders concept of a temporary construction to hold up the center ridge of the roof - and fitted them in the proper location.
Then there was no more excuse to climb the ladder and walk the roof. It wasn’t too bad, to be honest. I marked the locations of the rafters on the center ridge and then trial fitted the ridge and two rafters. They fitted perfectly… I was quite chuffed! Tomorrow - probably in the afternoon as the morning will by rainy - I will fit the first rafters. As you can see on the photo, Jingles is there to keep an eye on things and see if there are any tools that need immediate organizing…
Weather: blue skies, sunny, warm
Noggings everywhere
July 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment |
Today I did the noggings (a piece of timber that gives strength to timber based constructions) for the roof of the shed. Quite a tedious work as it involves a lot of tight angled nailing. I got three rows sorted now but I need to do another two.
Simon helped out by preparing a template rafter which I can use to cut the other rafters. Tomorrow - weather permitting - will be a day of sawing rafters then. There are 11 joists, so I need to cut 22 rafters…
Besides the noggings I also fixed the two 4”x2”. These will carry the rafters. The roof is beginning to look like a solid structure capable of keeping our stuff dry. I must say I had my doubts when I first nailed down the joists as it was all very wobbly…
As always Jingles was around to help me. For a change he decided not to wonder around with my tools but to focus on a bag with some 300kg of sand in it. First he tried to rip the bag apart, then he tried to move it by pulling it ferociously… 
I updated my How to build a shed item…
Weather: very windy (gusts up to 40mph), a shower every now and then, not cold.
6 inch is not what it seems…
July 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment |
Today - after yesterday’s 4 hours of grass strimming in the garden of our holiday cottage - I didn’t feel like any serious physical labor so I decided to work out a design for the roof rafters for the shed. After some fiddling about with a pencil and a paper I was fed up. What now? I remembered I downloaded Google SketchUp a while ago. I hadn’t given it much attention but maybe it could do the job. And impressed I was!! Within a couple of minutes I cooked up this really professional looking and functional design with all relevant measurements to saw the rafter template.
But then… I found out that a 6”x2” piece of timber is not really 6” by 2”. I thought I’d use a website with an inches to mm converter and just use the converted values. In which 6” is 152mm. Wrong!!!! It appears that a 6” piece of timber is actually 145mm. Where did those 7mm go? Well, a 6”x2” is only 6” by 2” until it gets treated (sawn, planed) and then it gets its actual size of 145mm x 45mm. Confusing!!
Luckily Google’s SketchUp tool is UK measurement quirkiness proof and I had the changes made fairly quickly. The design shows: the roof pitch (38 degrees), the location of the bird’s mouth within the rafter, the location of the 4”x2” on the joist which will slide into the bird’s mouth and all relevant size to precisely layout the rafters.
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Latest music...
Hair (1968, Original Broadway recording). Some naughty lyrics for that time!!
An Rathad a Bhatarsaigh, by the Vatersay Boys