Week Four

Week beginning 27th June.

Arriving at the workshop on Monday we find Manda upset. The foxes had taken all her lovely, friendly hens, the ones Molly has been taking pictures of and had hoped to make a recurring theme of in our blog.

RIP wee hens.

After a bit of wrapping our latest stack in plastic and a bit of measuring and cutting we head to our plot to meet Lorne to discuss what is involved in the groundworks. The meeting goes well and Lorne agrees to take on the work. He doesn’t seem phased by it at all which gives us confidence. By the time we are finished the meeting it’s home time.

Our hope for week four is to finish the gables for the shed and the house which are much bigger than the shed gables. So that they can fit on the lorry and on the work table we are making them in three sections.

The three sections as defined by the two squares and the rectangle in the middle.

Our last shed panel hasn’t gone well because we have misread the plans and put the studs on the wrong side of the marks we have measured out.

By placing the studes on the wrong side of the line the frame did not fit together properly.

This mistake has cost us dear because we need to dismantle the work we have done so far. A silly mistake but maybe tiredness is setting in!

A bit of brute force is needed to take the frame apart.
Tools of the trade if you make a big mistake.

Andrew puts us on the right road again and things start to go much better and we finish the second shed gable. Then we start cutting all the studs for the gable sections for the house. Most of Tuesday was spent doing this as these timbers have one end cut to 45º. To make measuring easier we cut the 45º ends first then measure and cut the straight ends. But before we finish for the day we manage to partly assemble this first section.

The section isn’t finished so doesn’t show the timbers below the window aperture.

A new day and the gods of self building are looking down on us, maybe it’s because it’s Pete’s birthday. We finish the Window section and the the two side sections by the end of the day then we celebrate with a nice meal and some nice wine. No late night partying for us though because all this hard work is catching up on us.

The stack of gable ends not yet complete.

Today has not gone well with mistakes, bendy and twisty wood and a bit of exhaustion thrown into the mix. After yesterday’s positivity and productivity it is a bit of a come down. But we persevere and by the end of the day we have only the final section of gable to nail together and sheet in OSB. We’ll leave that for next week becaue we are heading off to Edinburgh to take our granchildren swimming.

By Pete Ross

After years of living in a beautiful Victorian flat in Edinburgh, Molly and I have decided to sell up and build our new house ourselves in Argyll, Scotland. We have called it Gar Bothan which is Gaelic for warm bothy or cottage or hovel!!!!

3 comments

  1. I feel the exhaustion but you are making really good progress. Just 4 weeks and look how much has been achieved. And still time for pleasure and wee ones. Well done.

  2. Hope you enjoyed your weekend back through in Edinburgh. Well done getting so much completed. You are both amazing.

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