We have been busy behind the scenes as we have been painting every fence around the house. We have also painted most of the external of the house. In the meantime I’ve managed to build another side fence to room up the garden a bit more. Again, 100% recycled wood.
It was very fiddly as we had two gates to recycle and install. The hinges and bits were a bit fiddly to line up and one of the gates needed a big angle grind. The gates will be painted with woodlands grey to match the fence.
We also completed the first deck – with uncle Bob’s help – at the front of the house. It was a little bit larger than I first imagined. It has ended up around 10 square metres!
Total cost was $88 for some brackets, bolts, nails, drill bit etc. It took a day to frame it all up and a day to cut the wood, line it all up, and nail. It was a little tedious nailing the deck as I was trying to find the right offcut lengths for each piece to minimise wastage as I have another larger deck to do out the back. But this was a great practice run!
First task was to dig out the sand to make way for the formwork. This was around 20 wheel barrows of sand that I’ll use out the back. Then we added support pieces to all the walls using very large bolts. The wood is all from an old pergola. We managed to get away with only two stumps as we had lots of brickwork to hang from. We also boxed up the doorway.
Then we laid the bearers and joists. We kept the joists 400mm apart so I could match up the old merbau holes. It was a little fiddly but I think we got around 85% of the holes to match up. Very happy with that.
And the finished product. As you can see it needs a good sand and stain. Ignore the stool and plant, I was just having a relax and picking some caterpillars from the orange tree.
I will need to punch the nail heads then I’ll grab a belt sander (40 grit) and take her back to old. The timber is only seven years old so has plenty of life. I will then coat with a wood stain that enhances the merbau red without needing to apply oil every six months.
E and M's Metricon Adventure 