Further progress on the decking and some thoughts about communicating and friendships on the Internet

Even with the pretty awful wet weather we are getting here in Brittany at the moment I am still progressing nicely with the decking and Summer house project.
After getting most of the decking complete I have started on the Summer house. I have revised my original ideas and am making it quite a bit smaller as the times when we will be using it most will be on nice warm sunny days so we will want to be out on the decking not inside.
I am making it large enough to take two nice sized chairs that we used to have in a conservatory in our last house and with enough room to stack away the outside table and four chairs in the winter period.

I've now got most of the shiplap cladding put on the walls so the next job will be to board in the roof. I'm going to cover it in mineral felt so that it blends into the surroundings. After that I shall be making up the double doors to the front, these will swing back within the width of the side panels so will be out of the way but give a good open access to the front.

If anyone is interested I have a series of youtube videos showing the construction of this, here is a link to the latest one.

https://youtu.be/4GXGKulop-g

Actually this brings me on to the second part of the title, I recently had a comment from someone in Newfoundland in Canada, now I get lots of comment but this person took the trouble to give a bit more information about their life there and as a consequence I am now communicating with him by email on our different lives separated by several thousands of miles.

I am also in communication with people who live in Texas, Chicago, California, Oregon, the UK, France and Germany to name a few.

There are many reports on what awful things are on the Internet but to me it is a wonderful place to meet like minded people from all over the world. I have met, online, some wonderful people and had some great conversations who I would have never known existed without this medium.

All it takes is a little bit of effort in starting a conversation. I would encourage anyone to explore this either as I do through my youtube channel or here on my blog to engage in some conversation with someone that interests you.

Of course it goes without saying that you need to take precautions about giving out too much information about yourself until you get to know someone but that applies when you meet someone face to face as well.

For me the internet has opened up a whole new world and hopefully will continue to do so.

I try to respond to all messages, and have many interests..........so............. 

A bit more progress

We have had a couple of days of dry weather which has enabled me to get on with the decking, I have decided that the octagonal end section will be stepped up from the other decking to give it more prominence.

The first job was to construct the framing which I did on a level piece of ground outside of my garage.

What I hadn't bargained on was how big and unwieldy it would be when it was finished, at one point I considered rolling it like a giant wheel down to the bottom of my field but decided that it would have all probably fallen to pieces by the time I got it there, so i Improvised some supports on a wheelbarrow and managed after about 20 minutes to get it in place.

  

It wasn't easy being on my own to either get it down there and put it into position but it all ended up well.
Here is a link to my Youtube video of it.

Once I got it in position and held with a couple of temporary cramps I could start screwing it to the existing  decking and then make a start on putting in the supports.
Standing on top of it gives a really lovely view over the stream and the trees around it and I can already imagine myself relaxing there with a glass or two of wine on a warm summer evening

Making a start

I have had enough of cutting trees and clearing undergrowth for a while so have made start on the decking area at the top of the slope down to the stream.

Although the structure was pretty stable I have added cross braces in both directions to make sure there is no movement. The bases at the bottom of the posts are made of heavy duty plastic and are in two pieces with a screwed insert allowing adjustment of height.

I have now decided to modify the decking, originally I had it in mind to encircle the group of trees directly in front of the end but I now realise this will probably make it all to large. In addition I would have to attach the decking to the trees. I noticed in heavy winds there is some movement in the trees which would have put a strain on the decking structure.

I am going to extend the end with an octagonal section and stop it just short of the trees. After coming up with this idea I had a look online to see if there was anything similar and came up with a couple of photos nearly exactly what I have in mind.

photos cpopyright http://simplicitydecks.com/

A lovely week

This past week has been superb, not just because of the beautiful weather we have been having but also having one of our sons, Peter, and daughter-in-law Rachael staying with us. They also brought their dog, "Matty" with them. It was lovely so spend time with them as it was a few weeks ago when our youngest son, David and Amanda stayed for a few day with the grandchildren Tom and Emily.

I have slowed down a bit recently in cutting down the row of trees behind the house that have been putting the house in shade during the evenings. Peter and Rachael insisted that they give me a hand to lop some more off, however after cutting off the first one and commenting that was one of the most dangerous jobs he had ever done! Thanks pete! He talked me into taking the rest down to ground level. I am really glad that he did as It's going to open up the back of our property and give it a whole new look.



We have left just one standing as there is another fir in the field behind that would need to come down as well if we cut it down, however who knows next year I may be tempted.
They were some serious trees that we took down and I will have a few weeks work in logging them up and clearing them away.

The ground actually shook as the larger ones came down and should provide wood for the woodburner for a long time to come.

With the lovely weather we were able to spend a few evening out on the decking with the Chimenea going and the BBQ on.

Busy Times but lazy BBQs to come

Well after our 25,000 mile trip round the world I thought it was time to start a job at home that I've had in mind for a while. At the rear of our house is a sort of patio area.

As you can see in the photo it is just plain concrete and not very attractive and it doesn't inspire you much to make use of it even though it gets all the sunshine in the afternoon and evening and an ideal place to sit outside.

I decided that I would make a larger decked area, but rather than just a boring rectangle I would be a bit adventurous and extend it with an octagonal seating area.

These two photos show the octagonal end set out and the decking started and were taken 7 days ago.

This one shows the seat construction started and more of the decking completed

Just two weeks to the day after starting it here is the completed area.

I am really pleased with the end result which came about all the quicker with the help of my son, Peter, who came over on Monday and helped for two and a half days.

If you look closely you can see I've also put in low level LED lighting under all the seats plus installed hidden speakers for a sound system under the seating.

In all I used about 250 metres of timber 400 metres of decking boards and well over 2000 screws.

Time now over the coming Months for long evenings by the Chimenea  and many BBQS.

Happy Days!

Back Home

Well this last few weeks have seen us doing an awful lot of travelling, Our daughter Anna, lives exactly half way round the world from us so visiting her is a major event. We started off with an 8 hour drive to the tunnel and stopped overnight in Folkstone before setting off from Heathrow, the first leg of the journey is (just) an 11hr flight to LA we spent some time in Santa Barbara before continuing our journey, another 13hr flight to Auckland a 2 hr wait and the an hour's flight to Wellington arriving refreshed (sic) at 8am in the morning, during which we passed the date-zone so lost a complete day!

We had a lovely time catching up with Anna, James and the 3 boys ( Joe,Leo and Blake ) while we were there we all hired a beach house a couple of hours drive north from Wellington.
The house backed right up to the sand dunes with a short walk to the sea......Lovely!

 A nice seat directly behind the house on the sand dunes overlooking the sea

 

Miles and miles of deserted wide clean beaches, the beach is actually designated as a road with a 30mph limit and many vehicles use it to tow boats or just to gain access.




There was a lovely decking area around the house and an outside Pizza oven with a good supply of wood which we made good use of. A nice place to spend a few hours each day with some cold beer and wine!

The time there went all to quickly and we were back on a plane or another 1 hr flight to Auckland another 3 hr wait and another 13 hr flight to Hong Kong, In actual fact we stayed this time the other side of the water in Kowloon for a couple of nights which made a nice break before yet another long flight 13hrs 40mins back to Heathrow!
All in all a lovely holiday and one to remember.

Back home now with all the spring and summer to look forward to. The garden is the first priority so I've spent a bit of time this week rotavating quite a reasonable sized area beside the fruit beds ready for vegetables.

From this end it looks quite a big area which in reality it is as against the area of grass I have cut down in readiness for turning over in the next few weeks but looking from the other end I wonder what I've taken on!

 I've also knocked up a compost area out of some of the trees I've been taking down so all in all I'm quite pleased with my work since we have got home

I am now also making the first tentative steps to forming quite a large decking and seating area at the rear of the house, this should make a very nice entertaining area and I would very much like to get it completed in March so that we have the full use of it during this coming Spring and Summer. 

Watch this space!