Front wall - again, so close!

From:

Via:

To:

 And via:

To:

Yes, yes, we don't have gates, and the piers are not finished off, but look - it's starting to look like someone actually cares about it! Finish the piers, remove the cones, plant that verge in front of the wall, and we'll be there! So close....

Guest Room

Again, very close!

From:

To:

Yes, the headboard's not back up, but again, carpets! So so close!

So close on the boy's room!

From:

To:

Yes, yes, so the wardrobe drawers need fixing, and the bed needs making, but look - carpets! Furniture!

And also:

Just need a doorknob now!

Hero father-in-law returns for the little boy's room

When we bought the house, our sons room looked like this (this pic might have been from our first visit perhaps)

As per our daughters room, the room was gutted, the lathe & plaster stripped out, modern insulation fitted and a new window too.

The blue plasterboard is sound deadening plasterboard - it's between the two kids rooms...

At this point the old electric light was still in action....

We'd hardly got the plasterers out of there, when the father-in-law tore around the M25 and did this:

Huge progress - all the lights in, the plug sockets working, walls painted, woodwork done.

Carpet fitter will be in later this week.

Another brick in the wall...

It's taken a little while, but we're getting around to having a front wall. We left the house like this last time.

The gates and the posts still there.  We thought the posts might support a new set of gates.

We also thought that the gates (both the small one to the left of the below pic and the main 5 bar gate) were in line with the house's front wall.

Turns out neither thing was true. A morning with a chainsaw and a digger revealed the truth.

It all left the house a bit open at the front, so we had to sort out a new  fence and gate quickly!

Today we're like this. Steve Colgate of Maidstone has been busy again.

Moving toward the front., That gap is where the garden gate is going to be. That is, where the gate that leads to the front door will be. 

The gate will be 6 feet at its highest point, but arched, so the piers are about that high.

We wanted the wall not to be too elaborate, but not boring either, hence the dog teeth at the top. You might also be able to make out the vertical basketweave panels in the straight wall along the front of the house.

The front garden's going to need a bit of work! Does highlight how long the wall is though.

Nice Deck!

Continuing where we left off last time...

The frame was built out. There are few noggins - the decking itself provides the bracing. Where there are some, it's about going round obstacles (like the ginko tree in the right of the below pic) or where the oak sleeper 'foundations' are out of square.

The frame is more or less complete in this pic. You can see the various devices to set the corners square and to ensure the surrounds' height is equal to the thickness of the deck boards. 

This above pic is actually more or less the same pic taken from a little further back to show my temporary saw bench. The little evolution saw is pretty good at straight cuts, and with a bit of persistence and a few days later we got to this:

....which is more or less finished. There are a couple of bits of the sort of trellis effect to do, but it's usuable (see the muddy footprints!). Since this pic, I've added a beer bottle opener to one of the upright posts....

I've got wood!

You might remember the sort of wood-sticking-out-of-the-ground thing I had going on from the last bit of concreting. Looked like this:

And then I started to make the actual decking. Given the overall haphazard nature of using oak sleepers cut in half and chucked in some holes and pouring in concrete, getting everything square and level was going to be a bit of a faff. That car jack you can see in the below is actually a precision lifting device, enabling very accurate setting of level:

Basically I worked out that making a square of the timber that I was using, and then making all the joists meet that, rather than trying to do it the other way around was the way forward:

And this is where we are today - there is actually bits of decking on top of the frame!

The timber is all treated, an as it's above the ground, it shouldn't rot from underneath, but the sun will really go to town on the topside. In any case, my assistant put a coat of preservative covering on the underside:

There's a fair bit more to do on the decking, but I'm pretty pleased that we are where we are with it - at least there's no more lugging of heavy timber about (joists are 8 x 2's at 4.8m long). The adding the decking on top is a bit monotonous though.

The kids zip wire thing is coming on. It also started as a few bits of oak sleeper sticking out of the ground:

The above is the 'landing zone'. Or the 'other end' of the zip wire. The launching pad is the bits of wood sticking out of the ground to the left of the jetty:

Making the landing zone. In my last post, I showed this pic:

Which is the cross beam for the zip wire. The wire goes through the middle of the beam, and it's this that holds the whole lot up. The two things bolted to the back are where the diagonal supports will go from. They'll go from there down to the the bits of oak sticking out of the ground. Of course, it's very heavy, so trying to lug it up to about 2.6M height would be pretty hard. So a bit of ingenuity and a crappy old Jeep Cherokee, plus a willing father-in-law gives us:

 And with the various bits cut off etc. The arch is supposed to be sort of lopsided - it is a design feature - honest:

The launch pad is basically a 3 storey tower. It's about 4m from ground height. This is it going up: The bracing is necessary to stop it wobbling all over the place:

The floors are 4x2's with decking on top.

Here it is with the actual wire attached to the tree- you should be able to make out the line a further 2m higher than the platform itself.

 And down it goes to the landing zone:

There's a load more work to do on the safety railing, and the recovery system for the zip wire trolley. That yellow cord you can see will recover it back to the platform, but it's a not very elegant solution. It's also the case the zip wire is very fast. A better recovery system will involve some more pulleys which will hopefully add a little bit of a braking effect.

I've bought a few tools along the way which enables me to make this stuff. Here's a little view of the (one of) the workshops:

I've also started to accumulate the necessary materials for the new outside office:

So, still plenty more work to go....