Suidh Sìos!

So when you want to sit down, you need something to sit down on. Easy enough indoors, plenty of options. Not so much outdoors though... But how to solve this problem without spending any money? That is the challenge!... Then I remember I had an old ikea shelf unit in the parents loft that hadn't been used in 10+ years and a plan began to formulate...

This will be more of a how to guide than a blog, but if even one person takes on the idea and possibly even improves on it, then I'll be happy! :)

Step 1: Work out what height you want your bench to be and screw in the shelf as if you were building up a normal shelf unit.

From left to right: Step 1, step 2 & step 3.

Step 2: If you only have two shelves to play with like I did... Locate some two by two or similar and cut two pieces to the same length as the two pieces of wood at either end of a shelf. Drill a hole in either end suitable for the screws that come with the shelf unit or similar if you don't have these (I for some reason had enough screws for four shelves but only two shelves... I think the other two are in the loft somewhere still...).
If you are lucky enough to have a third shelf then take it apart as described in step 4 and use the two end piece. Then decide what height you want your arm rests to be, screw the pieces in place and saw off the front two pieces flush with your arm rests. See second picture.

Note: If a member of your family is helping you, do not leave them unsupervised whilst you go off to find some sandpaper, otherwise you might come back to find them sawing the back bit off instead of the front bit and end up having to swap the bits round...

Step 3: If you don't have a third shelf locate some wood similar in shape and size to the planks of wood used on the shelves. If you do have a third shelf then use two of the planks from the shelf you've just dismantled. These pieces of wood will finish your arm rests. Place the plank on top of the arm rest and decide how far you would like it to over hang and mark with a pencil. Mine was about two inches. Draw a straight line with the back of your saw and cut to size. You could nail the pieces in place, but I chose to screw them in place. See third picture above.

Of course there's always one stubborn nail...

Note: Remember to sand down any rough edges, in particular those that will have plenty of human contact such as the top of the arm rests.

Step 4: Take your second shelf and dismantle as shown above. The planks of wood are nailed in, so it's easy enough done with the likes of a chisel, the reverse end of a hammer and a bit of gentle persuasion...

The Bodach comes in useful sometimes...

 Step 5: Take the three planks and place on the back of the bench and decide where you would like them to be. I went for option two as I felt the back would be too high in option one and I wasn't sure about having such a large gap in the back... Now place the bench on it's back and nail the planks in place.

My nails are on the left, the bodach's are on the right, no competition!...

Step 6: Take the two end pieces of your dismantled shelf and screw them in on either side anywhere below the seat of the bench for extra support. I didn't take a picture of this, but you can see the additional lower supports in the pictures below.

Step 7: Now that the back is on you need to saw off the excess, preferably at a slight angle slopping down and away from the back of the seat.

It looks complete, but we're not quite there yet...

Although your basic bench is now complete, it doesn't have much depth and is therefore not as comfortable as it could be. So we need to add an additional plank on the front.

Step 8: For this you'll need either the third plank from the third shelf or in my case, one on the pieces cut off from the arm rests cut to the same length as the shelf planks. Decide which side is up and cut the front corners off at an angle to round off the edges.

Step 9: You then need three pieces, cut from the excess wood from the back, that will be screwed underneath to give extra support to the seat. At this point it would be useful to place your bench upside down to screw the supports in place. See the first picture below.

I forgot to mention, if your shelf came with one of those metal cross supports, you might as well use it...

Step 10: You now need the second piece of excess wood cut from the arm rest to act as a brace across the front of the seat. Cut to size and and screw in place. See second picture above.

The bodach just couldn't help himself...

 Step 11: Turn it the right way up and test it! As you can see, it's a very generous seat for one, or ideal for two little people...

Undercoat seems to be salmon coloured...

Step 12: This wood has not been treated for use outdoors, so you need to protect it. How you do that is entirely up to you. As I was on a mission to spend zero pennies I raided the shed and found a pot of exterior under coat for wood, with just enough to cover the bench, and a pot of exterior red gloss paint with just enough paint for one coat. It will need a second coat at some point but one coat will do for now...

New technique for drying a brush when you want to use it later that day...

 And the final product! Not bad for a days work! :)

Dèan Suidhe!

Air Falach am Broinn a' Phreasa

So some of you may be wondering what I've done with the left over bits of kitchen? Well the base unit and worktop have been relocated to the shed and are being put to good use, but what about the wall cabinet? I had a special plan for the wall cabinet, one that involved a bit of redesign...

You know those ugly things we call electric meters and fuse boxes? Things we need to have and some successfully manage to hide? Well mine was far from hidden... Granted it is high up and out of the way, but still on full display, glaring at you with it's ugliness...

The coat hooks weren't great either, not enough of them for a start... Anyway, the plan was to cover up the meter and fuse box with the old wall cabinet so that it would be hidden away, but still easily accessible... But first I had to measure up and cut a big chunk out of the back of the cupboard so that it would fit nicely over everything. I also had to remove the coat hooks as they were in the way...

Nice colour underneath the coat hooks...

 As you can see I'll also have to get the polly filla out and slap on some more green paint. I'll also need to find  a wee bit of wood to fill in the missing chunk in the door frame. But that's a rainy day job... Need to get that preasa up!

Doesn't it look much better! :)

And with the addition of a wee key shelf and at last a place to hang my many scarves!

But of course we mustn't forget the coats, where am I going to hang all my coats? Don't panic, I had a special unused corner on the other side of the room reserved for that!...

Now I've got too many hooks... Oh dear, need to buy more jackets!... ;)

An Cidsin

So when you design your new kitchen, most of you will designate a place for the fridge. Well, the person that designed my kitchen had no such consideration... It was simply a case of, lets see how many cupboards we can fit in here regardless of whether or not you need them... So I had masses of cupboard space, in fact too much (yes it is possible), and no home for the fridge... So the fridge freezer lived in the utility room, which was rather irritating to say the least...

I therefore decided that one of the base units and one of the wall units had to come out... I thought this would be a long way off as I thought I'd have to get someone in to deal with the worktop, but I accidentally discovered that the worktop was not stuck down in any way shape or form and was easily removed with a bit of heavy lifting...

Is that red I see behind the worktops?

So what does one to on a Saturday evening when in desperate need of procrastination from the thesis? Yup you guessed it, start demolishing the kitchen...

Oh what lovely blue skirting we have...

And there's the lovely red wall with complimentary blue skirting... Oh yes and the floor isn't complete... I'll definitely have to do something about that red wall, and the wooden supports on the wall will need to be shortened and removed. In the meantime the thesis was calling so it had to remain as it was, but at least I could finally get the fridge freezer into the kitchen!

Welcome to my multicoloured kitchen!

So the thesis is done and dusted and I now have time to get on with the rest of the kitchen... Step one, remove the excess wood on the wall, get the pollyfilla out and get rid of that nasty red an blue combo... Step two, cut the worktop to size...

Measuring and marking up

The scary bit and mission accomplished!

Now the worktop is back on and the wall is no longer the colour of a Chinese restaurant! :) I still have the rest on the kitchen and utility to paint, and sort out the floor, but at least the hard bit's done!

I decided to leave the splash back as it was as I felt removing it was unnecessary...

Decisions Decisions!...

There are many walls in my house painted magnolia, my FAVOURITE colour!... In fact, the skirting board and window sills and frames are also magnolia! You could say that I bought a magnolia house... Magnolia is NOT my favourite colour, especially when all the woodwork has been painted to match, or not as it were... If a house has to be painted one colour and one colour alone, I would much prefer white... But maybe that's just the graphic designer in me poking its head out...

Anyway, the kitchen is one of my magnolia rooms, and although I didn't want to paint the whole thing white, nor did I want to paint it all a bright colour either, I did want to inject some colour in there... So out came the test pots!

It was a tough descision... I originally wanted a bright zesty green, but couldn't find the colour I was after... So second best was either pink or blue. The darker blue was definitely out and it was a toss up between the other two. I eventually decided on the lighter blue, even though the idea of a bright pink kitchen was pretty cool...

So off I went to B&Q to purchase my blue paint. But wait a minute, what's this? Could it be? Yes it is! That bright zesty green I was after! Forget the blue, I'll be having me a pot of this please!...

Yum! :)

So the painting commenced, but first off I thought I better slap a coat of white over my test patches...

Lovely!...

And the result! A lovely balla uaine running from the kitchen through to the utility room!

A' Gluasad an Fhiodh

Now that I was half way through the wood in the log store I decided it was time to move it. This of course meant shifting all the wood that was left out and dismantling everything... Why bother you ask? Well first reason would be that I put it in a silly place, in line with the view from the kitchen window... So basically, you couldn't see the garden properly... Secondly, although it worked, it wasn't functionally at it's best in it's current design and I wanted to rebuild it with a design that was more practical and user friendly, that also happened to look better too... And last but not least, it's new location was to be MUCH closer to the back door...

As you can see, shifting the wood was A LOT of fun...

So first off is the rebuild of the basic structure. Can you spot the difference?

And incase you're wondering... All of this timber has been recycled and has cost me zero pennies...

Now that the basic structure is complete, it needs a roof... This is the only part of the build that has cost me any money... Somewhere between forty and fifty pounds for the OSB, roof felt and tacks, hinges, bolts and screws.

Yes it's me doing some work...

You're probably wondering why I'm bothering to put hinges on the roof... Well apart from the fact that it makes it easier to stack/unstack logs when you don't have to crouch down all the time, it's also an opportunity for the logs to do a bit of sunbathing... ;)

Actually maybe I'll use it to house the parentals on visits instead...

Time to load up... But first a bit of log splitting to break up some of the bigger pieces...

No space wasted... The gaps in the pallets are used to store various bits of timber for later use.

I was slightly optimistic about the roof however. That is, despite having lived in Skye for six years and knowing how fierce the wind can get, I thought the hinged roof would be heavy enough to stay put, but I was wrong... A gale that night resulted in half the roof being pulled off it's hinges and major felt repairs required on the other half. 

So apart from felt patching, the solution was a couple of bolts on each half of the roof to hold it down.

It's not pretty but it works! Oh, and that's not the shadow of a giraff, it's my hand...

Now complete and fully functional it's looking pretty good! The bodach reckons I need to paint it pink, but I think that would just look wrong...

Deiseil! :)

Na Craobhan

Tha mi ag ionndrainn na craobhan! :( At the house I previously rented I was surrounded by my own personal forest with 60 plus trees, most of which were twice the height of the two up two down croft house... I miss them! There's something about trees that make you feel safe and secure and my new garden doesn't even have a sapling, just a sea of grass... I will never be able to recreate what I previously had at the rented property, but there's plenty of room for a tree or twenty... ;)

The annual craft fair that takes place at the Clan Donald Centre, Armadale at the end of May was approaching, and I saw this as my opportunity to hopefully find some trees. The growers are all local, so no danger of buying something that won't grow in Skye or withstand the Sgitheanach weather...

I bought a darach, beith-bhàn or yellow birch so called because of the colour if it's leaves despite it's red bark (one of my favourite trees...), calltainn and a seileach an t-sruth (also one of my favourites). So four trees in all, and all very different! A good start!

But where to plant them? This was mainly determined by how they grow... Some closer to the fence than other...

Am Beith-bhàn

An Darach

An Calltainn

Seileach an t-Sruth

Now all I need to do is sit back and wait, and get some more trees of course! All four trees are in this photograph, lets see if you can spot them...

The Letterbox

The letterbox, oh the lovely eyesore of a letterbox screwed to the outside of my house rusting away, leaving beautiful marks all over the wall and letting the rain in so that all my letters are nice and wet...

As you can see, not a very attractive feature...

So off it had to come and in with a REAL letter box! The screws were too stubborn though and we had to yank it off... And what was underneath was not a pretty sight...

Gorgeous!

This lovely mess was then scrubbed and painted to look a bit neater.

To put the letterbox in I had to make a hole in the door. Brave! or stupid? Either way, the drill and the jigsaw came out, the whole was made, and the letterbox was put in! Hey presto no more ugly letterbox and no more wet mail! :)

One day I will give the door a new lick of paint. And the house...

The Wind Breaker

Now it can get a tad windy in Skye, well, a bit more than a tad... And when you live right on the front of the sound... The back door opens to the side of the house and the driveway, so when you step out, you get blasted it the wind is playing. There's also no form of fence a the back of the driveway, so you get a good view of the garden when walking by. No privacy what so ever! Time to change!

I don't want a cute wee fence with a little gate as it serves no purpose against the high wind and certainly doesn't add any privacy... But at the same time, I don't want a massive fence that is nothing but scary and ugly.

So the master plan is to build two fences that go halfway across the driveway on either side, high enough and sturdy enough to both shield against the wind and prying eyes. But fences are expensive, so half will do for now... The half next to the back door of course...

Step one: lift two slabs (easy peesy, not heavy at all...), and shift out of the way...

Very pretty...

Next, dig a hole, stick your post in (ensuring it's level...), fill the hole with water and add postcrete... Oh yeah, and wait...

I forgot to mention the need for supports so that you don't have to stand there holding onto the thing waiting for the postcrete to dry and hoping you don't move it accidentally and it ends up setting squint...

Now time to work out where the other post will go and repeat...

X marks the spot!

Although it apparently only takes ten minutes to set, I decided that I'd let the posts set over night and finish it off the next day.

How attractive!...

And all that was left to do was level out the ground and nail on the slats...

Think I might need to get a wee bag of gravel to level it out...

And some pictures for the finished article!

Oops left the back door open...

Woohoo! A wee bit more hidden and more shelter from the wind!