An Doras

When I woke up the other morning I thought to myself, "time to fix the shed door!"

When I moved in, the shed door was held on by one hinge. One very rusty, rickety hinge! The other two hinges had given up the ghost long ago and it wasn't long before the third and final hinge decided "I've had enough!" and broke...

For several weeks the door was merely propped up against the doorway and every now and again would get blown over... After a day of having go and put the door back up at least three times I decided I had to do something to stop it falling over until I got the chance to fix it. So, out came the rope and a couple of nails and hey presto the door is kept firmly upright!

The rope will have another important role to play in the revival of the shed door...

So, time to tackle the door! First thing's first, off with those rusty hinges and old lock! Turns out the lock was hiding a secret! a big hole that used to house a handle!

spot the difference!

Of course I then had to hang it! Luckily the bodach turned up just at the right time to hold the door in place whilst I screwed the hinges in!

Once the door was on, I decided it needed a handle, but I didn't have a handle. So I improvised and made one out of the blue rope. Very stylish!...

Removing the other half of the old hinges...

Adding the stylish new handle!

Now all I need to do is give the shed a new lick of paint! :)

All nice and shiny! Well, kind of...

The Garden, Step 1!

Welcome to my garden! A massive patch of untamed grass with a serious infestation of moss!

I have lots of long term plans in my head for my garden, but first thing's first, it needs a serious tidy!... It seems the previous owners weren't too familiar with the concept of a lawnmower amongst other things...

First of all, clear all the rubbish lying around... In particular, the random bits of junk dumped down the side and back of the shed!... Amongst the junk was some really really rusty old scaffolding, a car bumper, lots of junk wood, a rusty washing line pole and a rusty tairsgeir. I don't think I'll be cutting any peats with it anytime soon though... So all in all, lots of rusty things in my garden...

I think the tairsgeir needs a bit of tlc...

You can now walk all the way round my shed! :)

So time to tackle that grass! Out came the lawnmower and the strimmer... I was tackling the edges with the strimmer, whilst the bodach was in charge of the lawnmower. He got a brand new lawnmower for Christmas this year and so donated his old one to me! Unfortunately, he only got about one square foot of lawn done before it packed in!... Luckily, one of my neighbours was pottering about his garden at the time and very kindly lent us his flymo! :)

The grass had also grown over the paving slabs near the house, so much so that it was difficult to work out where the edge of the paving was... This set about the next task of finding these edges... This job was particularly satisfying!

Still need to neaten it up a bit, but looks SO much better!

After a bit of pruning of what I decided were weeds, it was time to build a little fire at the bottom of the garden to dispose of all the waste! :) Although the area on which I had the fire was lawn, the long term plan for this area is not such, so it was decided that it was the ideal space... In the future, I will also have a compost bin, but this does not yet exist...

Although there's a long was to go yet, I'm sure you'll agree there's a vast improvement already!...

Now time to sketch out those grand plans! :)

The Magic Wardrobe!

Every girls dream, a big wardrobe! And mine was about to become reality!

In my bedroom I have a very deep alcove to the right, as deep as 2 wardrobes and about 150cm wide. More than adequate for a built-in wardrobe! So I set to work with a little help from the bodach (somebody's got to hold the screws...).

Seeing as I had the full height of the room to play with, I decided I was definitely going to have two rails so that my clothes had plenty of room to breath, and of course, so that there would be plenty of room for new clothes!

Here's how you use an òrd... (hammer)

First thing's first, I had to decide what height I want the rails. This was done in the most logical way... Get and item of clothing, put it on a hanger, and stick it up against the wall... This also allowed me to work out the correct distance the rail needed to be from the back wall so that the hangers would sit on it properly.

We also needed to measure the correct length for the poles and cut them to size. I made an error of judgement with the first pole and cut it a fraction too short, but I needed one of the poles for the curtain anyway and this was the ideal length...

Acrobatic DIY

Decided a little extra support was needed in the middle of the rails to cope with the weight of all my clothes. I figured a large shelf bracket in the middle would do nicely. And nicely it certain;y does! Works a treat!

Up goes the second pole and then the brackets for the top (very high) shelf to store items that I don't use very often... 

The bodach's really bad attempt of hide and seek...

 Closely followed by the curtain pole and curtains. The current curtains from my wardrobes are recycled. Left behind by the previous owner. They're not very attractive and a tad too short, but they'll do until I find something I like. I do however quite like the ring tops on the curtains, so I'll most probably find some material that I like and reuse the tops of these curtains on the new ones.

All hung up nice and neat!

 It was then time to fill the wardrobe! But I soon ran out of hangers... A week later, when I was in Inverness, I bought 30 more! You would think this would be enough, but it seems I have too many clothes, or not enough hangers... More hanger shopping required me thinks!...