Some Jobs Go Smoothly – Others Not So Much!

Some time back I got a little playhouse for my Grandson. The plan was it would go in his garden on the patio. It was promptly delivered to their house in good order which was where things started to go wrong.

Repaired Dry Stone Wall

There were various delays in putting it together and then they realised they will be moving soon and it wouldn’t be easy to move once built so decided to put it up here at our place after all.

I  headed down there with the trailer and shipped it up here. We decided to put it in a sheltered spot to the side of the house. To do this we needed to level the ground and lay some slabs to sit it on

This was where things went really badly wrong. Gary, my son-in-law, started levelling the ground only to find a tree root in the way. It turned out to be part of an old tree stump which was rotting away.

The problem was the stump was in the dry stone wall and as it had rotted the wall de-stabilised and partly collapsed. I’m afraid this seems typical of a lot of things we come across here. Jobs done with little consideration of the future.

Gary had a happy couple of hours getting the old stump out and then repaired the wall, which took more time. A job that should have taken an hour or two at most ended up taking the pair of us well over a day.

Wall re-built, ground levelled and slabs laid we started building the playhouse which would have been easier without grandson Gabriel’s help. For example, we were still fixing the wall panels as he decided to climb through the window.

By half past five, grandson was getting fractious. A tired and hungry toddler is not a cheery soul so they took him off for tea, bath and bed. I moved on to watering – hot sunny weather is great but it does take time keeping everything from dying of thirst.

Grandson Inspects Playhouse Door

Tomorrow we’ll felt the roof and finish a few bits of detailing. Then it’s getting painted, Gabriel has chosen the colours so it might stand out a bit! I’ll put a full product review of the child’s playhouse up when we’re done.