Friday 28 November 2014

A Shed Obsession - part 3 - Prep & Go

The preparation phase went roughly to plan. The current shed was emptied and then knocked down, the groundwork phase was changed to completely dismantling the old shed with an aim to reuse as much of the wood as possible. I didn't do any groundwork due to the time it took to break the old shed down into reusable pieces of wood, plus a stack of unusable wood.
Bike riding had gone on hold for Shed building and the good weather was both a blessing, from a building perspective, as well as a curse because I couldn't ride in this beautiful weather.

The details of the plan also became refined as I decided to reuse the windows from the old shed as well as a door from the outhouse. Brighton Wood recycling was contacted and wood was chosen to be delivered alongside the pallets. We could spend a long weekend in Berkshire, whilst our son was at Reading Festival.
Already compromises were coming. The costs were increasing - £500 was plainly un-realistic for the whole shed given the time & quality. With the cladding, which had to be bought new, and purchasing a green roof, once again new, the cost was going to probably double upto £1000. However, given that this is a bespoke sized insulated outdoor space with a green roof, a grand is still cheap.

Then it was time to start. Buying the posts, the wood getting delivered and clearing a working area. The difference between planning and reality started to hit. I had 18 pallets all the standard 1m x 1.2m in size but apparently there are at least 18 ways to build a standard pallet. Which meant the bolt-them-together approach was not going to work.... this was the start of the problem solving on the build. I went for various types of metal plates to screw the pallets together which I discovered in B&Q. It was lucky one had opened just 10 minutes drive down the road. I would be there quite often during the build.

Then getting the posts up and straight was not as straight forward as my thinking suggested. Queue the first of the time & cost vs quality compromises. The posts weren't quite straight, the physical constraints of building alone drove this compromise. This was the end of Day 1. I was already a half day behind schedule.

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