Fencing - Part 2

Whilst I was away enjoying myself at the Runrig 40 year celebrations in Muir of Ord, which was absolutely fantastic to say the least, the bodach set about building the second bit of fencing for the side of the house. Set a couple of meters further back than the first bit, this second piece of fencing helps complete the much needed privacy from the street and creates a bit more shelter and helps hide the wood store down the side of the house.

Not much I can say about it as it's the same construction as the previous fence and there's no point in repeating myself. However, one lesson was learnt from the previous fence... It's much easier to paint the wood before you construct the fence, especially if you're painting on a really windy day... That way you don't end up accidentally painting your car...

Ahh that's better! :)

As you can see, the garden has disappeared from the street view! :)

Best self portrait ever!... ;)

I also discover something else had happened whilst I was away having fun! A new tree appeared! Definitely wasn't there when I left... It's a plum tree, so hopefully next year I'll be enjoying some tasty fruits! :)

Bedroom Upgrade

When I moved in I bought some test pots of paint for various rooms and for 5 months my bedroom still looked like this:

I finally decided it was time to do something about it and turn my bedroom into a proper bedroom.... So time to start painting, and it wasn't long before my walls went from looking like this:

To looking like this:

Still plenty to do though... That lovely magnolia skirting board for a start! Which against the magnolia walls make everything look very, well, magnolia... Who ever thought magnolia skirting boards was a good idea really needs a good talking too... It just doesn't work, especially if the walls are magnolia as well... Makes everything look tired and dirty... So, time to get the white gloss out and sort it out!...

Lurvely!... :(

Nice and fresh! :)

Now my bedroom looks and feels a lot cosier! :)

But not done yet. The alcove needed a few shelves to make more effective use of the space and create better storage. 

But I wanted to make sure everything blended in, so painted the supports before I put them up...

And on with the drilling with my new drill that actually works! 

Note to anyone thinking that a drill from Argos for £10 is a good deal, it really isn't, they really are rubbish!... Had it for ten years though, before I decided it was time to get myself a proper drill!...

And the shelves are up! The bodach was about to help drill holes in the wall and make sure the bubble in the spirit level was in the right place, which was handy!... ;) 

Looks like a proper bedroom now and I'm very happy! :)

Upcycling the Coffee Table

My coffee table is a handy wee thing, it's light, easy to shift back and forth with your foot, the perfect height to double up as a foot stool, extra seat or something to stand on if you need to reach something high up. And best of all, it was free!

It's an old suitcase table from a hotel which has been in the parents house for as long as I can remember. in fact I think it's probably older than me... And it has had various uses over the years, including being TV stand... And when I moved into the old house in Duisdale, the table moved to Skye and was reborn as a coffee table!

I was quite delighted to discover an almost identical coffee table in an interior design magazine priced at around £300 about a year ago! So bang on trend and totally FREE! :) But there was one thing wrong with it... It didn't have a shelf underneath to store my junk!... And I eventually decided I had to do something about this...

I had plenty of wood left over from other now redundant items of furniture and with a quick rummage, found what I needed to create my shelf! just a bit of trimming required on the wider planks and a few holes to fill...

However, before I started to fix the shelf, I first needed to give the whole thing a quick sand as it needed a new coat of varnish anyway, being a bit more brutal with the top of course...

Then on with the drilling, screwing, hammering and glueing!

And the first coat of varnish!

Several coats of varnish later and it's complete! And I can safely say, It's well used! In fact I'm not sure how I survived without it before now!...

Sifting Soil

Whilst I was at the painting of window sills the bodach was at the sifting of the soil... I have very stoney ground, about 30% of it is probably stones... Not huge stones, but certainly bigger than gravel... Not the best for growing anything, so the newly created and weeded boarders had to be sifted. Some might say, why bother, or why not just go and buy a big pile of top soil and swap it... Well apart from the fact that you need to part with money to buy top soil, you have to remove the stoney stuff to make room for the new stuff anyway, so why pay to do the same amount of back breaking work?...

The bodach got a bit of a production line going for his various soil particles. The wheel barrow for the sifted soil, a bucket for the stones and another bucket for any stray weeds.

You're probably wondering what we did with all those stone... Well, the area where I lifted slabs to put in the wind breaker was in need of some stone to make it level with the pathings and we are slowly creating a gravel path round the shed. Not quite half way yet, but already much better than the weeds and dirt...

Once the bodach had reached a certain point, it was time to plant the five Ash saplings donated by a friend which will eventually grow into a hedge.

nice plant pot!

The wee Ashies have been planted between the shed and the hazel tree, which is also quite small at the moment...

And after all the painting and the sifting it was time for food in the style of a BBQ with home made mushroom and mozzarella beef burgers! Yum! :)

Of course having a garden that gets all the all day long does have it's disadvantages when seeking shade... And in this case called for a makeshift canopy made from a ground sheet, some poles and string and a couple of clamps on the fence. It did the job! But will have to think up something better later on...

Outdoor painting

This weekend and the next were filled with painting outdoors. Not I'm not talking water colours of the Skye bridge, more fences and masonry...

The wind breaker that I put up a few months ago was in need of it's first lick of paint, and as the rest of the fencing and the roof of my house is ginger, I figured I'd continue the theme...

First coat went on fine, minus the splatters on the walls, but when it came to the second coat the next day, a day that was extremely windy, it went everywhere!... No matter how much prep you made... This included the car! Yes the car! Which I very swiftly moved further away... Luckily, it came off easily enough a damp cloth. Otherwise I might be stuck with a beige car with ginger spots! Don't think that look will be coming into fashion anytime soon...

I also spent the weekend painting a refresher coat of paint on the ginger fence in the back garden as it looked like it hadn't been painted in a while... This took up the rest of my time that weekend...

The next weekend was time to get stuck into the masonry stuff. First off, the wall that I had splatter with ginger fence paint the weekend before!...

All nice and pretty again!

Then it was time to tackle the window sills! The back not being too bad, but the front, which faces onto the sea!...

Beautiful! All cleaned and prepped for painting

I did all  the windows downstairs and they now look great!

This involved a bit of white masonry touch up as well to make the nice new black window glow!

The upstairs window sills still need to be done, so you have a bit of a before and after view round the whole house at the moment... And repainting the window frames is on the list too. Priority, front windows! But at least this much is done and I have an idea of what it's will look like in the near future!

I also plan to repaint the whole outside of my house at some point, but that probably won't happen till next summer and I'll need someone with a very long ladder and that isn't scared of heights to come and help...

And this was all done on a day like this!...

Arlene

Cò fon ghrèin a th' ann an Arlene?! I hear you ask... The answer is, I have no idea, but it's interesting what you find amongst a pile of free timber...

So it was a roasting hot Sunday and the day of the Wimbledon mens final! Andy Murray for Scotland! But last year's final was far too tense and there was NO WAY I would be able to sit through it all and stay sane! So I embarked on a mission to build a compost bin out of all the scrap bits of wood I had acquired!...

It's all pretty straight forward, but I'm just going to pretend non of you have seen a piece of wood, hammer or nail before...

Step 1: Lay everything out and make sure you actually have enough of the right sized bits to build the bin...

Step 2: drill some holes in the big chunky bit of wood that's going on the bottom and screw onto the back posts. 

Note: make sure you cut the posts to the same length first...

Step 3: nail the rest of the boards for the back panel in place. (but if the wood is thicker, like the first piece I used, then drill and screw.)

Step 4: repeat process for front panel, adding a third post in the middle and leaving a two board gap at the bottom. At the same time have a think about how you want the doors to work...

Step 5: Time to nail on the first side! (Remember to pre cut all you boards to the same length...)

Step 6: Build the centre panel (the one that will separate the two compartments). 

This is when Arlene first appears...

Note: Remember, as you have already added one centre post, you need but one post for your centre panel, but make sure you nail them onto the right side...

Step 7: Turn your bin on it's side and nail your bottom panel for the other side in place. This is so that your box is the right shape when you put the centre panel in, but not too tight so that you'll have difficulty putting the centre panel in place.

Step 8: Put your bin up side down and position your centre panel in the, you guessed it, centre of your bin and nail in place.

Step 9: Nail the rest of your boards to the exposed side.

Step 10: Create the slots that your doors will fall into. I did this using overlapping bits of wood, which you may prefer to screw in place to be more secure.

Step 11: Time to make the doors! My simplest of the simplest design here was two planks of wood for each side with teeny lengths of wood nailed onto each plank as handles. But if you have any drawer handles kicking about, these would be ideal...

Note: Make sure you measure the gaps on both sides of your bin as they are likely to be different...

Step 12: Put your bin upright and put the doors in place.

Step 13: Add a long, sturdy plank to the top rear end of your bin to which you will later hinge a lid.(Shown here in bright green)

Step 14: if you have a random name plaque with Arlene written on it, nail to the front of the bin.

Step 15: Decide where you want your bin to live.

Step 16: Use!

The bin is now full! I still need to put a lid on it, but it's doing it's job well! 

This wee job was created in such a way that the design had to fit the wood available, as all of the wood was sourced for free. Therefore measurements are pretty much non existent, but if you'd like to get an idea of size, then each compartment is about the same size as a large waste bin. So plenty of room for an averaged sized garden! And two compartments is always now useful that one big one...

And the day was nicely rounded off by Andy Murray winning Wimbledon! :)

A' dol timcheall, mun cuairt is mun cuairt!

Some people prefer washing lines and some people prefer whirligigs. Me, it all depends on the washing line/whirligig... In this case, I loved my whirligig which was kindly donated to me by my friend Janni a couple of years ago! It's big and you can raise it a good 2 feet higher off the ground! Basically it's awesome!... And there was no way I was going to leave it at the old house!...

The bodach went at the postcrete that was keeping it upright at the old house with a sledge hammer and re positioned it at the new house with a fresh mix of postcrete. I then had the fantastic job of trying to untangle it... I think I got the short straw on this one...

But eventually... Yippee it's up and looking very handsome! For a whirligig...

The next stage was to get rid of the ghastly washing line making my garden look untidy!... This involved: removing the line it self; digging up the turf;

a bit of dancing... ;

hammering down what's left of the pole and replacing the turf x 3...

So quite and event really, but well worth it!