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!...

Shelves!

Weekend three and it's about time I got those shelves made...

No. 1 priority, CDs and DVDs! Time to turn the alcove behind the TV into entertainment central! With plenty of space left over to house the exercise bike...

I already owned various CD and DVD storage units which were on long term loan to the parent. And although there was the option to call in that long term loan, it just wouldn't have fitted the space, and there was SO much unutilised wall space that it made sense to build purpose made shelves...

So far, out of all the shelving I'm putting up, the wood for the CD and DVD shelves is the only wood I've actually had to go out and buy and the total cost came to about £30. Not too bad...

The bodach drilling holes in my wall

Is it straight? The bodach making it look like he's the only one doing any work ahem!...

The planks weren't a hundred percent dìreach, so I had to fix them down with small brackets. Decided on this method rather than glue and clamps as I figured it would be easier to take the shelves with me is I ever move... The amusement of the day was the one bracket bracket, that the bodach fixed to the top shelf cos I could quite reach, was totally squint! My response to his efforts were a glaring look and "Hmmm..." Still, at least the actual shelves are straight and now full of CDs and DVDs!

I have since found more DVDs and although I did make a big pile for the car booty, I'm definitely going to need another shelf...

Next it's the alcove under the stairs for all my junk... All made from left over wood, or FREE wood! Always good for the pocket... Again all purpose built for the contents I desire to store.

First shelf goes in, Perfect!

All done! Just need to put the curtain back up now and we'll be sorted!

I still have a wee bit of shelving left to do in the living room, where my books will be housed, but it's made such a difference getting these done. Finally feels like I can function normally, in my living room at least...

The chimney also got swept this weekend so I was able to light the fire for the first time. It was fantastic! This also meant I finally had hot water and no longer had to boil the kettle to wash the dishes! :)

I also got my log store sorted! It's actually meant to be a shoes rack, but has never been used for that purpose... I originally used it in the old house for books as it fitted the space perfectly, but that use is now obsolete and so it becomes a log store!

It's Purple Time!

Time to paint the rest of the walls in the living room purple!

This didn't take anywhere near as long as the white paint did. two coats and we were done! But I did have to tape off all the skirting and ceiling first which I thought would take forever, but again, was done in no time at all.

Purple spot disease: One of the side effects of painting with rollers... Should have taken my jewellery off before I started, but at least it was a water based paint...

Finished!

With everything moved round the right way I can finally sit back and enjoy! Well, almost... I still have to put shelves and pictures up... And yes, the curtains. I think it's time we replaced those black bags...

Fuel!

For those of you who are friends with me on Facebook, you'll be used to seeing a thousand one pictures of firewood being/having been created and may be wondering what's going to happen to it all...

Well, we had the van for the whole weekend, so Sunday way spent shifting the firewood! We had a lot to shift, and as it's heavy work and the bodach is getting on a bit, I had my friend Janni help me and the bodach's job was to stack at the other end...

But first there was the dilema of how to store it all as I no longer had an abundance of out houses to choose from... I had managed to get my hands on some old pallets for free and we set about building the stick shed!...

Stage 1: floor and walls!

Off to the old house we go to start loading... First stop, shed number two with all the unseasoned wood:

This is just one wall, there was more on the other side...

All in all it took 3 and a bit van loads to empty this shed...

Janni and wheelbarrow with the last of Shed 2's wood. Looks really heavy!

Meanwhile, back at the new house, the bodach is busy stacking...

We then filled the van up with as much seasoned wood from Shed No. 1 as we possibly could and headed back to the new house:

Girl power all the way! Who needs men!...

We didn't manage to shift it all, but as the old house is on my way home from work, I decided I would just have to load the car every day until I was done... 

At the end of the day...

Of course it snowed mid week before I got the chance to put the roof on...

The next day and we have a roof!. Not actually attached or felted yet, but the rounds do a good job of keeping it on...

All of the wood for the stick shed, apart from the roof, was free! :) All of the fire wood was free too! Just a lot of hard work!...

A week later and we have more wood shifted and everything gets neatly stacked!

But we have to keep the rain out of course!

I'll have to get some more pallets and build another stick shed, but there's no hurry...

Van hire time!

So, time to shift all my furniture that's been waiting for a home from the parents' house in Inverness over to Skye...

I had accumulated so much furniture over the years that when it came to kitting out my new home, I didn't actually have to buy very much. Infact, I even had to sell off some furniture as I had too much...

Anyway... I got on the train to Inverness after work on the Friday and spent Friday evening in my bedroom being a lot more brutal than I had ever been in previous clear outs and had my had at one end with a box for recycling and my mum at the other end with a black bag. My dad made at least five trips down stairs to the blue bin... And we managed to fill two black bags. There was also a big pile of stuff set aside for the car boot sale at the end of the month. So all in all I got rid of a lot of stuff!

Saturday morning, time to pick up the van and load! Fortunately it was just the right size for my mattress...

We had to leave 3 of the four dining chairs behind as there just wasn't enough room...

Time for a tea break, and in my case breakfast, and off we go! I did most of the driving, and informed my dad that we would NOT be stopping for a coffee as it was less than two hours away and we had to unload the van and pick up the sofa from another house at 2:30... I would have driven all the way, but my car was in Kyle, mainland side of the Skye bridge, and had to pick it up on the way back. We don't have trains on Skye...

We got everything shifted and I now get to sleep in a real bed in my proper bedroom, even though I haven't decorated it yet... I opened the curtains after my first nights sleep in MY ROOM and dried my hair to this view. Not too shabby at all!...