After my moans about the weather, it seems the gods have smiled on us for a couple of days at least. The last couple have been glorious, too hot if anything. Are we ever satisfied? Today has started wet but there’s hope of good weather later.
Metal Tool Shed
The simple answer we came up with was a small metal tool shed. It was roughly £130 which we didn’t think was bad at all. I reckoned it would take me 2 or 3 hours to assemble. Are you laughing yet?
I knew I was in trouble when I read the parts list.. 200 screws, 75 nuts & bolts amongst all the other bits and pieces. Describing it as easy to assemble, well maybe for a redundant NASA space shuttle engineer. Not so easy for me.
How you can describe something as self-assembly when it involves cutting lengths of aluminium to size and drilling holes in the metal, I don’t know. Too add to the fun, my two small metal drill bits broke during the job so Val had to pick up more bits when she was shopping, which put a hold on construction.
Long story short, 11 hours work so far and I’ve still got to fix the blessed thing to the floor to stop it blowing over in the wind and fix the door on (drill yet more holes in the door jamb to fix the hinges on) It’s a nice little shed and will do the job but what a pain.
Chainsaw
Since we’ve got a woodburning stove, that means cutting up wood. Well my bowsaw is fine for branches but for thicker logs it’s not really adequate. By the time I’ve sawn through an eight inch log I’m hot enough not to need to burn it! So it was off to Lidl who had an electric chainsaw for £55.
Now I’ve ranted a bit about safety instructions in the past. The problem is they’re so involved in covering the suppliers back that you miss the real important stuff amongst the noise. You know what I mean – “do not use this electric appliance outside in a rainstorm whilst standing barefoot in a bath”
However, a chainsaw is a powerful and dangerous tool. They can kick back and do you some serious damage in a flash. So the proper gear is sensible insurance if you value your limbs. Only thing is that the proper gear is going to cost far more than the saw! You pays your money and takes your choice..
Stony Soil
I was reading an old booklet about Welsh farming life and came across this. “After ploughing … The labourers would then go up and down the field picking up any stones larger than a child’s fist and throwing them into heaps which would later be carted away.” Later it says “In most parts of Wales, no matter how often the stones were picked from the fields, the next cultivations would produce another crop of them.”
It appears that picking rocks out is going to be a fact of life for me from now on. Does anyone know why rocks keep surfacing or is that a mystery on a par with the disappearing socks after washing?
The smaller grains of soil get washed under the stones, which is why the stones appear to surface. Reminds me of the time my uncle, a farmer in Norfolk, bought a field which he found to be full of stones. He could only get a single plough on it and us kids spent a lot of our summmer holiday going up and down that field picking out rocks and stones. Back-breaking and boring work.
Thanks Stephen – at least I understand what’s happening in the soil to bring up the rocks now. Appreciate you explaining.
This just leaves the missing sock mystery. My theory is a transdimensional black hole appears in the washing machine and they vanish to a parallel universe.
Hi John. I have a big one of those metal sheds – if it comes flat packed in numerous panels.
I live in a fairly windy spot up in Co Antrim, Ireland. I used to have a wooden shed with felt and like all of my neighbours I lost count of how many times I replaced the felt due to gusts. Even really careful felting and battening it down didnt help…
So I got a metal shed flat pack and three years later it is as solid and clean as the day I built it – (with help – it was a tough job!!!).
There literally is not a mark on it and zero maintenance. I think you will be pleased with it.
Thanks Richard – sounds like it will be worth the effort in the end! To be honest, I’m not very good with engineering or motors so maybe a more savvy chap would have found the instructions easier than I did.
I hope they made it clear before you bought the shed that a drill was required for assembly. Many people could be considering them for allotments or plots remote from any electrical supply and having to use a drill to assemble a flat pack item, (which would is not a normal assumption nowadays), could easily be the deciding factor in which shed to purchase.
It needed my mains power drill to make the pilot holes. Drill bits for metal don’t last long either. I went through about 6 doing it. Also a hacksaw to cut some of the metal struts. Luckily I’ve a big hacksaw so much faster than a little junior hacksaw.