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!

Lots of weeding!...

So, a lot's been happening over the summer! Too busy to write blogs.... And it's not over yet, not by a long shot!... But I thought I'd better get writing before you all forget about me....

It's July and everything is growing, including the weeds!... They seem to grow faster than everything else!... So, it's time to get down on the hands and knees and start pulling, everyone with their own little designated area... The bodach was on the slabs and surrounding area behind the house.

And I was on the boarders, which involved pulling dead grass out of the fence, among other things...

My part pretty much took up most of the day, but the bodach was soon sweeping up and moving onto the next bit...

Looking pretty good! :)

And who should arrive just in time to help the bodach with the driveway but Miss Forbes fresh from a hill! :)

They soon got to work weeding between the pathings, re positioning pathings and weeding the gravel... And it wasn't long before it was looking a thousand times better!...

There was a vast improvement on my end too, but still a long way  to go...

Overall, job well done! Although I think my hose might be a tad too long...

But after all that hard work, an outdoor feast was well deserved!...

I think the bodach went a bit over board with dessert though...