Page 1 of The things you do

Her indoors fancied being more her outdoors, with a summerhouse to be precise. She found one and liked, pent roof style because the chalet style ones had intruding roof trusses and got gonna be about 11 feet wide and 9 feet deep that's its footprint, with a 6 foot deep patio area across the front.

So far, so good.

Then came trying to get a landscaper to work the sloping garden where said chalet will be parked. You guessed. Nothing doing.

Enter YouTube.

Hmmmm......how hard can it be?

Got a spade (to cut out the area of lawn).

Needed a shovel.

And a barrow. Wilko for the barrow and I got a nice (red) steel one with a pneumatic tyre - so much easier on the arms and back.

A helpful builder's yard calculated the amount of exploits needed - 4.5 tonnes. And sharp sand to level off - 1.5 tonnes.

Anyone likely to do the same, have the hard-core dropped onto 8 x 4 boards, so much easier to shovel up.

Then I hired a plate vibrator, or whacker as the tool hire shop would have it. the practical problem was getting the whacker out of my estate car and around the back of the house.They are bloody heavy! I'd picked up a dolly from Lidl of all places,  rated at 250kg carrying capacity. Even so, my son and I had to lift the beast from boot - thankfully my Avensis has a flat loading bay - to a small stool/table and.....rest.....and then to the dolly.....bend ze knees!

Of course, this enabled me to say,when asked by SWMBO what I was doing, to say was going to play outside with a dolly and a big vibrator.

So far, the sharp sand is packed down and reasonably level. Next weekend is patio laying. This because there is a 12 week wait for the building and we've decided that at least we'll have a patio area to use and I came by 50 odd 450mms square concrete slabs and then the building will sit on timbers to allow a bit of air to circulate.

Oh, and we've got one of those Ackerman-type little stoves to go in and I sourced a quadrant circle of paving to use as a hearth.

We are resigned that summer will be long gone by the time it is finished and so it has become the Christmas Cabin.

Not sure how much we've saved because no-one ever came to quote. It seems all the landscapers were catching up on work already booked before lockdown.

And no need for the gym. Just barrow 30 loads of hardcore!

It's kept me out of mischief.

This item was edited on Sunday, 6th September 2020, 08:42

You won't believe how exhausting it will be.
Shoveling and mixing and lifting flags truly soul destroying.
Just been laying some flags (all of which needed cutting).....bought a diamond cutter for my angle grinder. Why didn't I do this years ago!!!????

Ste

I had to lay the foundation for my summer house too, although it was last year. This spring my wife had me doing ~68m of fencing.

I had a quote, just for the concrete base, of £1400. It's 4m by 5m, can't do ft/inches 😁 I think for 2 cubic meters of concrete delivered, sub base, Wacker hire, waterproof tarp, timber frame and reinforced steel mesh it was £600.

Yup, I'm sure we'll have saved a few hundred quid in labour.

I now have a hard flat sandy surface that looks like a 5 a side pitch for gnomes.

So pleased was SWMBO that we put the new patio table and chairs on it and had lunch, this before I muck it up with mortar and coastlines 😮