You have to love a scaffold

Perhaps I'm exaggerating.  But one of the best things we have purchased is our own scaffold.  I don't have the scientific proof - but I reckon it's 500% safer than a ladder and 900% more fun!

Ours is a budget number from Synergy Scaffolding and it is absolutely brilliant.  Imagine being able to stand on a flat, level, stable surface 3.5 metres up.  Can't picture it?  Buy a scaffold :)

Mind you, sometimes you need to be a bit creative and resourceful when you're setting it up.

Picketing

I have to say – we do like a white picket fence. Our son-in-law, Simon (yes, that is a familiar name) pitched in and put this together for us. It would look a lot better without the jumble of bricks and building materials around it, but we’re working on that.  

I think one of the “secrets” to a good picket fence is getting the spacing right, which is a real challenge when the width of the (el cheapo) palings varies by up to 12mm. The winning strategy seems to be to mark where the left hand side of each paling should theoretically go on the top rail and then fudging it a bit depending on the individual paling’s width.  

From experience we’ve learnt that you can’t just use a spacer stick between them like BH&G suggest. That would work if the palings were all exactly the same width. Either way, when you get to the last 4 or 5 you need to make some adjustments or the last gap will look totally wrong.

Framed

It was with great excitement that we took delivery of our shed frame the other week.   Manufactured by The Steel Framing Company (TSFC), owned by Will and Sarah.  It is a work of art. 

TSFC had thought of everything; Kevlar gloves, brilliantly labelled plans, drill bits and even the exact number of bolts (100 in case you were wondering) to tie it all to the slab.  On top of that we were invited to call Will on his mobile anytime if we needed a hand. Which we did - in fact the day we didn't call, Will called us to see how things were going.  Will and Sarah even helped us stand some of the frames up when they dropped by a couple of days later to check on progress.  Now that's customer service.

As Will pointed out, it's not really a shed, but a class 1A dwelling (ie a house) with no internal walls. Hence the unshed-like diagonal braces and verandas. 

The completed frame

With all the extra steel the heaviest panel was 88 kilos and 4.5m high - which was a challenge for Nette and I. But we pulled it off by gradually lifting it onto progressively higher rungs of the scaffold.  We met our match though when it came to the trusses.  Spanning over 8m they were too long and the walls too high for us to safely manage. 

It took us over a week to get all the framing done, including a day with a local builder and roof plumber to get the trusses up.  But it looks brilliant.  So much so it will be a shame to hide all that precision steel engineering behind colourbond.

BTW - My comments about TSFC are totally unsolicited, my enthusiasm is simply related to their incredibly great product and brilliant service.

Stair challenge

stair plan

The stairs have presented a few challenges along the way, the final one being how to make the awkward bit, near "X" on the plan, safe. 

 

The rules are pretty clear; any spot with a drop of 1 metre or more requires a rail.  We didn't have a problem with that - but we wanted the space for displaying space of our junk and a rail like the others wouldn't lend itself to that.

 

Hand rail is 100yr old pine and
balusters are copper plumbing pipe.

 

 

 

It's like starting over

Shed Slab

While it's been quiet on the blog front things have been happening at the Croft. In particular, work has started on the workshop.  Roy from Any Type excavations dug a wonderful hole in June only to have Dieter from Spaghetti Concreting fill it in a few days later.  The dimensions are about 10m x 10m plus a 1.5m veranda on the front (right side in the photo) a mud room on the eastern side (left side in the photo).   The steel frame is scheduled to arrive in August.

 

But wait there's more....



Stairs completed

Having completed the upstairs cupboards and plastering we decided it was finally time to oil the stairs.  The change is just amazing.  The photo of the half completed Harry Potter door below shows the transformation in progress.  Actually, that door was a great find.  We purchased it for $20 from a second hand dealer in Grenfell.  He had taken it from a building in George Street and dated it circa 1900.  It's cedar and was quite beaten up having been kicked in at some point.  



Harry Potter door

We've also completed the bathroom cupboard (below).  The mirror was a Grenfell recycling centre purchase and the carcass of the cupboard was originally a chest of drawers which we found sans drawers.  It now sports drawers that we made from some old cedar skirting board while the doors are resized cedar window frames.   


Bathroom

So in July we're planning and preparing for the shed build.  The 5,000 gallon tank pad is prepared and I've been reading up on steel frame construction... what could possibly go wrong?