The New Shed

Well shipmates let me tell you a tale that happened a year or two ago just prior to my life changing heart attack. 

When I look at the state of this old shed I am amazed that we put up with this eyesore in the backyard for so long - but there you go - no accounting for human stupidity is there.  As well as being an eye sore the old shed was very much past its used by date. It had a dirt floor, was damp and dingy with a forehead whacking door entrance.

Demolishing it was all heat, dust, cuts and bruises - and several trailer loads to the city dump.

Several trailer loads of topsoil and my collection of "might come in useful one day" old bricks and rocks were required to build up the sloping base, but it still required one cubic metre of concrete.

The final touches being added to the plastic damp course and reinforcing steel by Alex - hard worker par excellence.

The old fulla takes a break for a photo. I was 103kgs in this photo - As I type I am 85kgs and losing steadily - a result of post heart attack sensibilities.  This is week one of the build  and I was completely buggered, a sign of things to come no doubt.  Shoveling builders mix and cement in Northlands summer heat is not for the faint hearted and especially not for a 103kg fatty with blocked arteries.

My son Alex. He was an absolute tower of strength. Without his help and patience I would still be mixing concrete.

Flash concrete pad troweled off. Time for a beer.

Time to read the good set of instructions that came with the kitset shed.

 

Our lovely tea lady showed exemplary diplomacy in keeping away from two bears building a cave. She sometimes (not very often) exhibits the persona of a woman from the days when men were men and built things and women were glad of it - but she does know how to discriminate between clever sayings that husbands tend to bandy around in their blog posts and the real lay of the land LOL.

Some visitors to the building site developed a form of snow blindness when looking at the old fullas shirt. The young fulla here just shakes his head wryly and sensibly puts on his sunglasses.

Flash shed!  Did we build this?

Yes, we did build it, my son and I, and a very, very useful shed it has proved to be. And it has raised the visual appeal of our backyard by about, say, a zillion percent!

Now shipmates this new shed malarky is one thing - but a real sailers boat builders shed in which a major restoration of say - a little yacht in need of a lot of understanding and TLC is quite another - This issue is becoming a major obsession with me - soooooo - what to do? what to do? Hmmmmm - There just has to be a way to fix this problem, but being a bear of little brain it may take some time to solve, but don't worry shipmates leave it to me - I won't find a solution overnight, but I will find one.

One last thing - take a careful look at the last three photographs above and try and work out what colour this shed is. The panels all came pre painted, we haven't painted the shed at all. Isn't it interesting how colour changes with the light? What we think we are seeing one day may well be different the next - sun shine and clouds - they always alter our visual reality and how we feel.