More Work on the Shed

They always say about building that everything takes longer and costs more than planned and sheds are no exception!

Saturday’s job was to treat the inside with preservative, fetchingly attired in bright blue rubber gloves. I’d used Cuprinol’s total care on the outside but it’s a bit gloopy and doesn’t seem to sink in as the normal stuff so Val bought a tin of that for me and I made a start. I’d figured about two hours but, of course it took four and we ran out of preservative. We’d gone through 2.5 litres (£10.00) so got a 5 litre tin which was only £15.00 and of course only used about half of it. Still, I’m sure it will come in useful and we’ll have somewhere to store it now.

I gave it an especially good amount on the floor, which had rotted on the old shed, so it would sink right through and really protect it. By the time I’d finished I’d a splitting headache from the fumes so I decided to leave it to dry out and spent the rest of the day in next door’s garden burning the rotten base timbers and a load of other wood. Our neighbour has a load of wood thinnings, I mean a load, and one good turn deserves another.

Sunday was back out to the shed but when I opened the door the fumes nearly knocked me over so left it alone for an hour to clear. I was a bit worried about the cats going in but I should have realised they’ve more sense than that, one sniff and they were back down the garden. So around midday I drilled through and got the electric cable into the shed. Now I’m not the greatest at DIY, Val won’t let me touch decorating or tiling and whenever I try a plumbing job it always ends up in unexpected fountains but I am reasonable with electrics. The feed to the shed leaves the house via a fused switch and also supplies the greenhouse but I wanted to be able to isolate the shed so after half an hour of searching nipped off to the DIY cathedral where Sunday worship was in full flow and got a fused switch.

Back home I took a piece of scrap wood, fixed the isolation switch to it and connected from there into a junction box, fixed that up in the shed and connected in the power feed. Now I can work on the electrics in the shed without switching off the greenhouse. More searching ensued for sockets, switches and lights which were found but not enough cable. Of course by now it was after four and the shops were shut.

I’ve got an outside socket that connects to an RCD that plugs in so I fixed that up ready for when I do have a socket so I’ll be able to plug the mower in outside safely.

Next job was to cut another piece of wood and paint it up with the total care to block a gap between the shed and the fence. Now my un-streetwise cat is limited to the garden unless he manages to climb the fence. He’s so jealous as our smallest cat can get under the shed but he’s a little large for that and he’s noticed the fascinating frogs that live under there.

Incredibly the day was over, it was half past seven and starting to get dark. Tomorrow I’ll pick up some cable and finish the wiring, build the partition, fix up some shelving and move everything back into the shed. In theory.