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....

Doing stuff outside....

We left last time with the chimney issues. We needed to get on with that, so off we went:

One down....

Onto the next one....

Finished article. Well, not exactly finished - a decent coat of paint etc....

We also decided that we needed a garden wall. There was a fence, but our intention was always to change the way the house was accessed - the garden gate was just on the road, meaning that people stopped on the road and chewed up the verge. And it was a bit dangerous too.

So the house used to look something like this:

Which doesn't look so bad, I suppose. Other than the pics are estate agents ones, taken on a fine day in May.

Now we've demolished the fence, and put in the footings for the new garden wall. The chimneys have gone, and you'll also note that the porch has changed also, with a brick bottom half.

It doesn't help that this is a shot taken in winter, and after we've driven a digger all over the front garden. Never the less, you get the idea that the profile of the house has changed a bit with the removal of the chimneys.

House looks kind of small face on.

We've also been messing about outside a fair bit. I decided to use the shelter as a chippie's workshop, and to that end decided that the far end could do with a bit more shelter:

... and a bit more sunshine! Anyway, this keeps the wind and rain out much better. Needs a lick of paint now.

Small update to outside loo door.

More wood. More carpentry...

More building stuff, A luxury chicken apartment.

Another shed extension. This pic is it sort of half-finished:

Has doors and the other side now - needs painting!

My air compressor is currently in the workshop near the house. It takes up a ton of space, and it's not even wired up. Annoying. I don't want it cluttering up the garage, so it's going to live in its own little shelter on the back of the garage. I've also left a bit of room in designing it to put other odds and sods:

The ends will be covered in mesh, like the chicken house. The compressor needs air around it to keep it cool. The 'lid' will be felted.

The greenhouse is being fixed. Some idiot (me) drove a digger through the back of it. And in moving the greenhouse from near the house to where it is now, a few more panes were broken. It needs a good clean up and replacement glass. I'll actually use perspex instead of glass.

Also been busy building a zip wire for the kids. It will have a sort of treehouse at one end, and the usual kid of stopping device at the other. These pics just really show the foundations. The treehouse thing won't be directly built on/in a tree. More like next to it. The sleepers are oak - they're just cut in half, and set in concrete. They are in there solid!

This is the other end - the sort of arch here will be the stopping end....

This solid looking effort is where the cable will terminate. Probably hard to envision, but more pics after more progress...

Used the same sleepers for a raised bed - my daughter was insistent we had a veggie patch. So we have one now:

This is the same idea as the zip wire going to have a deck that goes out on a cantilever over the pond.

This is the pad for the new outside office. I am supposed to work 2 days a week from home. My wife, who's in the same line of work as me, is supposed also to work from home. However, we only have one office in the house, so....

Small amount of painting means that garage part of the building under the cat slide roof is smartened up. Need to clean the cars now...

Starting to green up again for spring - can see the work the tree surgeon did here.