A rather boring day for the readers of my Diary . . . Sorry.

You are probably thinking . . . . . Hang On this diary thing . . . . Back in the past loads of stuff happened and now it’s dead boring . . . .  Well that is a bit true; it is not the diary it used to be. Part of the reason at present is my continued work on Shed Two (My workshop) and the reason I am working away on that a great deal is due to the weather. It has been lovely over the last few days. Lovely to the point where our daughter phoned us up from her home just a couple of miles away on the Welsh side of the border to say how horrid the rain was. At the time we were sitting outside in the sun drinking tea and chilling. A short break from shed work.

I will admit I did fire up the old weather machine on the off chance it might finally do something useful and not cause hurricanes again. So maybe it might just be doing what it was always meant to do, make it sunny.   

Anyway shed two slowly develops. One aspect of designing and building buildings without any design whatsoever is things can develop in ways that you never thought they might. I do wonder if going back in time folk just built stuff and the key point of any good building was it did not fall down. It does mean they can become quite interesting as you ponder ways to resolve an issue that you had not thought about until three quarters of the roof is finished. And I think Shed Two will be all the better for all the little changes I keep making in order to make it structurally sound and practical in a quirky sort of way. I will then claim I am a Master Builder in the medieval tradition of Master Builders.

There have been a lot of butterflies about lately I suspect that is a good sign. I am not good on butterflies, but I did see a small blue one and a large yellow one earlier as well as the white ones and brownish ones.  . . . My knowledge of plants is a bit like my knowledge of butterflies by the way. . . . . .

Right that’s it . . . . I suspect you are now thinking Well that was rubbish. But it’s a diary so Poo . . . .  (again) . . .

I sometimes draw beasts seen in the garden

but do use a bit of artistic license so no one knows what they are

Including me

Shed Roofs, Cups of Tea and Aliens

(14...)

It has remained sunny and so I have been working on the Homebrew Workshop a lot. What is frustrating is my brain thinks OOOoooo do this, and then you can do that bit followed by that other bit and then paint and seal stuff. My body follows along grumbling and demanding a rest while shouting at my brain . . . . . What the ******* are you doing now I’m old and knackered you know . . . . . Pesky Brain. I am meant to be retired you know. . . . . .

I suspect my body is much like other folks bodies when they get old and knackered. They complain a great deal and really hate an enthusiastic bouncy brain. Anyway by the end of today even bending down was a good reason to groan, followed by a slightly louder groan getting up.

However the task I wished to achieve is done. Which was to get the roof felt secured on the roof of the workshop so that if it rains in the next few days it will not matter. What made it tricky is that I have made a huge fixed skylight on the south side of the roof and I wanted that sealed and watertight and painted. Having managed that I now don’t need to get back on the roof again, I just need to secure the edges neatly. This is after all going to be a very posh workshop to make very posh things in.

I would add a picture of my work here to show you but by the time I had eaten . . .Fish and Chips . . . YUM ... and then rested and chilled for a bit it was too dark so a picture will have to wait so here is an old picture I drew of a UFO . . . Aliens are always keen to meet grumpy old men in sheds, as they tend to be Alien friendly and folk just think they are mad when they tell then Aliens visited me again last night while I was pottering in my shed. They do like a nice cup of tea and a chat about life.

The Story of a Shed

For many years I had promised my wife a proper designated space where she could make stuff and not have to pack it up when she needed a break and also a space to chill if need be. Hey I'm a chap I take 10 years to finally get that shelf up so this project was in my mind a long long time. In fact we moved house while I was still pondering

But in 2016 I started on a Workshop/Studio Summerhouse for my wife, much to her surprise.  Over many years I have sort of kept every bit of wood and stuff I thought might be useful to make something arty so I had a lot of useful stuff and therefore this material became the starting point of a project with no design. We already had an old, rather tired and uninspired summerhouse in the garden which we inherited when we moved to our present house in 2012 and this was dismantled in order to recreate something unique. Part of the roof ended up in a wall, and some bits of wall I think are under the floor. 

And so over about the last three years I have build this. its insulated and plastered inside has a decent roof and some power for basics plus a sewing machine and a bit of heating

Yes it has Fairy Lights and plenty of them. 

I always say a chap can not have too many Fairy Lights.Now I'm no expert at making such things but I do have a practical brain and know the vague principles needed to make a decent strong building, So to be safe I have over engineered this which means it will survive storms, Elephants jumping on the roof and Armageddon. Although having said that I have realized some of those recycled bits of wood for the fiddly bits are not entirely weather proof so come the spring (2019) I will be changing them for some Oak I have found in the Attic . . . . . Indeed a mystery but a good one.

There is a canvas covered Patio at the back that faces towards the west so a grand place to sit and watch the sunset

And inside it looks like this. It has a rather posh Chandelier which was a free-bee so you cant do better than that. My only regret was someone beat me to the other five. . . . . DAMN.

I made some Indian styled shutters for the rear window from a wooden unit that was left in the garage by the previous owner of the house. The rear window itself being a double glazed unit from our house when we fitted new outside doors in the dining room 

So there you have it  that is my wife's Sewing studio (Called The Indian Sewing Studio)  I have entered this into the Shed of the Year Competition for 2019 . . .  I loved that show when it was on the box which sadly is no longer the case, but the competition rolls on thanks to CUPRINOL . . . . Well Done CUPRINOL . . . . . 

To see my entry there, the link is   HERE . . . . . . . . . . 

At some point you may get a chance to vote for it and save me from the embarrassment of coming last, I dont mind too much coming last I'm not really a competitive chap, but we should always do our best and give these things our best shot. 

Finally here is a short video (a badly made video) of the Studio at dusk to give everyone a better idea of what its like. . . . .