Going back to this post, I received my cheque from the insurance company, so we took a trip to Bunnings and spent $1,200 on materials to build a timber privacy screen in place of the old greenhouse windows that were previously dividing off the back courtyard area from the main garden. 

We bought 8 steel posts, 46 lengths of thin pine, 2 lengths of thick pine and 2 steel hinges, then we pressure washed the brickwork, we dyna-bolted the steel posts to the brickwork, we painted the posts, we painted the brickwork, we cut the pine to size, we painted the pine and then we screwed the pine to the steel posts. Then we made a timber door frame, then we cut more bits of pine to size, then we painted the pine and then we screwed the pine to the door frame. Ya ya, anyway …

The privacy provided by the screen is enough to shut out the neighbours’ view of us and our view of the neighbours’ when our trees lose their leaves in winter, but there is also enough space between the wooden slats that the screen allows us to see out into our garden. Having that gap between the wooden slats allows the sun to shine through into the garden bed on the other side and also allows for air flow so hopefully when the wind is blowing a gale there is not much chance of it blowing over.

At the start of this project, we had to do a little remedial work because, well, when we pulled down the last remaining greenhouse window (after the first window was knocked over by a huge gust of wind one afternoon), half the brick wall that the window was built into came down with it. Tim was quickly forced into learning a new skill (bricklaying) that afternoon. Look at the concentration …

Then when the new cement had set on the bricks, the steel posts were dyna-bolted into the brick wall. Then one-by-one the timber slats were screwed into the steel posts. As you can see, we had three steel posts behind each section of screen, just to make sure that the timber was adequately supported. The timber slats only had the first coat of paint before they were screwed onto the steel posts. We did a second (final) coat when it was all complete and in place.

If you look carefully in the photo directly below, whose head can you see popping up from behind the brick wall?

Oh yeah, it’s me behind there. Look at me, all trigger happy:

Starting to take shape:

Almost there:

Now we just have to cut off the tops of the posts and put nice little caps on the ends:

See the dirty possum prints?

Pretty much done, just building the door:

And putting the second coat of paint on:

And done, complete with painted timber benches laid across the brickwork (and in less than 12 hours one of those nice shiny painted benches had been pooped on by a very large bird, it didn’t stand a chance, poor bench):

Finally, looking from the garden towards the courtyard area:

It’s finished! The shed is finally off the ground and in its home on top of the slab.

Built in only two days, here is what it looked like after they left on the first day:

The outside looks a little bit like a temporary builder’s cabin and desperately needs softening up with a stack of plants, but that will happen over time (there are plans to re-do that horrible covered patio area and put in some beds around the shed, but for now we both need a bit of a rest after this shed project).

It’s been up for 3 weeks and since then Tim has been busy putting up 3 rows of shelving and I’ve been busy hauling box after box after box (probably 300 boxes in all) from storage and moving them into the shed and up onto the shelves.

The packing area is all set up and, although it’s a little rudimentary, it’s a nice area to work in.

From dilkabear, these beautiful prints:

And from yellena:

Courtesy of Tim’s Mum, I found two great recipes for homemade dog food and homemade dog treats.

Here is the recipe for the dog food.

And here is the recipe for the dog treats.

Since March, I have been feeding Smokey and Cloe homemade dog food using the above recipe.r I find it is a little bit cheaper than canned dog food and they eat it up just the same as canned dog food. I haven’t done the maths but I would estimate we’re saving at least $7 a week by making dog food at home (that’s $364 a year!) and you can make it even cheaper if you buy low grade pet meat mince (an offal mix of leftover bits and pieces from the butcher, usually about $1.50 per kilo) rather than human meat from the meat section of the supermarket (I usually wait until the mince is on special in the meat section – sometimes it’s pork mince, other times its beef or veal – it’s usually around $5 a kilo).

There is just one thing I do differently when I make this recipe, and that is that I add a whole packet of pasta, rather than just one cup of pasta (I usually make it with spirals or tubes). I make a huge batch (sometimes I make a double batch) and then when it’s cooked I let it cool and divide the batch out into freezer bags. Then each morning when I’m making my breakfast, I take a bag of frozen dog food from the freezer, put it on the sink to thaw and dish it out to the dogs in the evening (our dogs get fed once, at night and they are treated throughout the day). One batch of my homemade dog food can last the two dogs 9 or 10 meals each.

If you have a dog (or dogs), I really recommend you make a batch of this dog food and see how it goes down. It’s super easy to make, it’s inexpensive, healthy and the dogs love it. It doesn’t specify in the recipe but I cook mine in a huge stockpot in the oven at 180 degrees (celcius) for about an hour. When I first started with this recipe, I cooked it in the stockpot on the stove top, but that just made the bottom of the pot burn so it’s much better to cook it in the oven, you get an all-round cooking process going.

Here’s what my dog food looks like when it all goes into the pot:

Then when it’s cooked:

And here’s my 10 bags of dog food ready to go in the freezer:

Tim had a go at making the homemade dog treats using the recipe linked above. They turned out really well. He got 96 dog treats from the one batch of dough he made. He even bought a special little cookie cutter to make the treats for the dogs. Here’s how they turned out:

And two special little dog treats:

For two special dogs:

Today I had a long overdue small victory. A few weeks ago, a large gust of wind came through the valley that we live in and it tore half the roof off our patio and sent it somewhere else. We still haven’t found all the bits of the roof so god knows where it landed. That same gust of wind knocked down one of the two windows that separates the back patio area and the garden. Here’s the window laying on the floor (and man, that glass is thick as hell and it was smashed into thousands of tiny shards. I was lucky to get away with just one cut on my finger while I was picking it all up):

So I lodged an insurance claim with my insurance company, RACT, and they sent around some guys to fix the roof but the guys didn’t fix the window because there was some problem with the way that it had been installed and that RACT were still assessing that part of the claim. I mentioned to the guys that I actually didn’t want another window going in there (because next time it might fall onto someone or some dogs and rip them to shreds) and that I’d would prefer to have a slatted privacy screen going in there instead.

Well, that was weeks ago and we hadn’t heard anything more about it, we just thought that they weren’t interested in the window. But today I had a call from RACT and the nice lady said that they’ve decided not to fix the window but instead they will give us a cheque for $3,700, which is the amount that it would have cost them to fix the window (wowsers who knew we had such expensive windows!). Then I can use that money to either fix the window or build something else there (such as a slatted timber screen, even though it’s probably going to cost half of what the insurance company is going to give me!).

Just a small victory in the overall scheme of things, but right now this little surprise is huge for me, considering all the disappointment with the shed. I’ve been walking around with a smile on my dial the whole morning.

While I’m waiting for my shed to be built, I’ve been doing my fair share of etsy window shopping.

From Noble Gnome:

From Oui Bags:

Ugh. What a horrible experience this shed has been for us. The pieces of the shed are still sitting on the ground outside and every time I go out there I look at it and feel like crying. I’ve paid $9,500 for a shed that I’m not getting an ounce of benefit from – in fact, this shed is costing me $55 a week by having my stock locked in a bulging storage unit down the road while this shed is laying on the friggin’ ground, not to mention the fact that since we demolished the old shed in April we’ve had to share the house with garden tools, power tools and future furniture projects. As you can tell, it’s now starting to grate on my nerves.

The guy from Fair Dinkum came Tuesday the 4th of May to erect the shed.  The moment he got out of his car he was complaining that the pieces of the shed were too far away from the slab (the pieces were only 15 metres away) and that it would take his three guys 4 hours to move it (needless to say, Tim and I moved the shed closer to the slab that same afternoon amd it took us just 1.5 hours); he complained that the slab was not level and was out of square and was short on one end 3cm and told me I needed to spend $1,800 on having the sides of the slab cut and having the pieces of the shed cut to size (I am so friggin’ cheesed off with my concretor. I specifically asked him if his work was square and level and he categorically told me it was. And I’m cheesed off with myself for not friggin measuring the slab before that concretor guy left. That guy stood against his car with his arms crossed and said “I’m not leaving until I’m paid”. So I stupidly gave him a cash cheque to get him to leave and off he went into the sunset [well, he naturally went to the bank first to cash the cheque then he disappeared into the sunset]).  The shed guy told me that he could build the shed using the slab as it is (out of square) but that the end result wouldn’t be pretty to look at and I wouldn’t be able to sell my house because the columns on the inside of the shed would be criss-crossed and the walls on the outside would be in the shape of a tee-pee (yes, he made a tee-pee action with his arms).  So after the doom and gloom of never ever being able to sell my house becase of an irregular shaped shed, they left pretty soon after that and I was left to look at the shed on the floor – once again.

When Tim came home that evening I told him what had happened and explained to him what the shed guys told me. To my surprise, he was confused about why they couldn’t erect the shed even if the slab wasn’t square. He looked at the plans for the shed and drew me out a few quick sketches and showed me that even though the slab was unsquare, the shed itself could still be built square, because the bolts weren’t attached to the side of the slab but were to be placed about 9cm in from the slab. It turns out all the shed guy needed to do was run a piece of string around the outside of the slab, take some key measurements, make a few calculations and then the shed can be built nice and square on the unsquare slab (sure, there might be 1 or 2cm gap between the outside wall of the shed and the end of the slab, but that can easily be filled in and it will cost a damn lot less than the $1,800 the shed guy was asking me to pay!)

After the shed guy left that day, for the next few days we took the time to speak to numerous people and some friends and family and most said that there must be a more simple and less expensive solution to what the guy told us needed to be done. After all, not every single slab in the world would be 100% square and perfect, there has to be some special tricks that are used by those in the trade to get a shed erected nicely – right? Fromwhat other people have said they’re really confused about why this guy didn’t just run the string line around the slab and just erect the shed and get it over and done with. At best, the guy was unwilling to provide a rational solution for us. At worst, he was incapable of thinking of such a solution (or perhaps he was trying to secure some work for his concrete cutting friends hmm?).

Almost 4 weeks after the installer guy came, complained and left, we’re finally at the point where the owner of the shed company has spoken to the installer guy and we’ve made a new time for the installer  guy to come and put up the shed. So the new date for the beginning of the shed is 8 June 2010 (well, we’re aiming for 2010 anyway).

I’m really upset about this delay because the owner of the shed company knows how important it is to me to have the shed up quickly. It pees me off because on their website, they have numerous testimonials from their previous customers who were all apparently so happy about how promptly they had their new shed installed. Yes, good for them. Unfortunately I haven’t had the same experience as those people.

I even went to the trouble of preparing a Visio diagram for these guys which sets out exactly what the installer needs to do and where the bolts need to be positioned.  So far, I’ve done more work on this shed than the friggin’ shed company. We’ve done what the shed guy asked (moving the shed pieces, grinding the rough, raw edge of the concrete slab off) and we’ve waited patiently for the return of phone calls which never come when promised. We’ve always had to follow these people up and press them for answers. Like yesterday afternoon, the installer guy said he was on his way home and would be in touch with us in an hour when he gets home and he can look in his diary for his next available appointment. We had to follow-up an hour and a half later, then he said “Give me half an hour and I’ll call you and let you know when I’m coming to install the shed.” We waited the rest of the night and still no friggin phone call. So 9.00am this morning we called him and the explanation was that he’d gone out to dinner with his wife! Great, how nice for you!

Argh I know this is a really long and uninspiring post but I’m so frustrated and I just had to get this off my chest. This project has now been going on since the beginning of April and going by the testimonials on the shed company’s website I would have bet that by now I’d have a shed to store my stock in and be able to get my packing room moved out of the house and into the shed. If you’re interestd, here is what the shed should look like when it’s finished:

For anyone who is reading my posts because they’re interested in moving to Tasmania, or if you are already in Tasmania and want to have work or improvements done to your house in Tasmania, please get in touch with me and I can certainly tell you those people whom I DO NOT recommend for various building works. One thing is for certain:  we are gathering plenty of experience as we proceed in our little renovation adventures here in Tasmania.

Well, a month later and I am still without a shed. Hopefully next Tuesday the installers will come and start putting it up. Apparently they’ve been really busy. Maybe by Friday a huge shed might be standing in our backyard waiting to be filled with stuff.

What’s been happening the last 4 weeks? Well, after we knocked the shed down, we had to clean up a bit, we cut up some of the pieces of wood that was left in piles. We made a lovely wood shelter from the old tin sheets that we removed from the roof of the shed. Like our handiwork?

We also had to hire a jackhammer and concrete saw to cut off 30cm from the long edge of the old concrete slab because it was completely hollow underneath due to excess water running along the edge over 30 years. That took some work. We filled two skip bins with concrete boulders.

The dogs were very confused about where the shed had gone:

After knocking off the side of the old cracked slab, we had to hire a mini digger to remove the dirt from underneath where the pavers were pulled up. We were going to do this by hand but quickly realised we would kill ourselves, so in came the Toro Dingo to the rescue:

Then once the area was all flat and the mounds of dirt had been removed, in came the concretor guy to box the area up, place metal mesh (reinforcing) over the old concrete slab and then pour in three truck loads of new concrete. Here’s the finished product:

As you can see, we have had a lovely new fence installed along the back.

I can feel that we’re almost there. After all this, we’re due for a break so we’re shortly heading off to the central coast of New South Wales for 3 days where I’m booked in for a nice back and shoulder massage. Then when we come back it’ll be work work work again moving my boxes of business stock from the storage unit into the new shed. Woohoo!

Ding dong! The witch is dead!

With a lot of help from our neighbour (he owns a very powerful chainsaw), we spent 3 big days over the Easter long weekend working on demolishing the shed and it’s now in pieces in a big pile waiting to be cut into firewood for burning in our heater this winter. Here’s some of the fun we’ve had over the past few days:

First step was to remove the sheets of zincalume from the roof of the shed.

We disturbed three possums whose house was in the roof of the shed. This last one didn’t want to leave, poor little thing (now he’s living underneath our house   )

Next was to call in the neighbour with the big chainsaw and start cutting some of those timber beams connecting the roof to the vertical posts:

Then we get the angle grinder and cut these heavy-as steel railway lines which connects the patio to the shed (yes, the previous home owner used old railway lines as supports for their patio):

Then eventually it looks like this:

We had to leave that back wallwith the funky wallpaper standing so as to keep the doggies in (that temporary steel fencing you can see on the left has now been moved over to the right, so if that funky wall came down, there’d be a big gap between our property and the paddock next door and Smokey and Cloe would be off).  Speaking of doggies, here’s one now, laying in the sun watching us do all the work  :)  :

Now we wait for the weekend when we go to the hire shop, pay our $80 and get the use of a concrete cutter for 24 hours, during which time we hope to shave 30 cm of concrete off each side of the existing concrete slab (why? because the edges of the concrete are crumbling and it needs a nice new edge on the side of the slab). Then next week we will have a concretor come with a truck full of concrete and he’ll make us a nice new concrete slab over the top of the old cracked one. Then we wait about 7 days for the concrete to dry (if there is no rain) and then we can have the shed company come and drop off the shed bits and pieces and then about a week after that we’ll have a new shed all ready to be used.

Then I can tidy up the back yard after stuff was just dumped everywhere and anywhere and perhaps build a little wood shelter for all this new firewood we’ve got!

My latest purchase is a $39 wire and plastic greenhouse from Bunnings - already I know it’s going to be money well spent. As the weather down here in Tasmania is starting to get a little cooler as we head into Autumn, I found that the new lot of seeds I’d been trying to germinate were taking their sweet time to come up.

So the day before yesterday I put the greenhouse in its place on a north-facing wall next to the house and set up my seedling trays. Yesterday at lunch time I checked to see what was happening in the little greenhouse and guess what? All of my broccoli and cauliflower seeds had suddenly popped out to say hello to me.

I couldn’t believe the amount of humidity that gets stored up in that little greenhouse (actually perhaps its too much humidity as some of the other seedlings had wilted a little). Each day I’ll have to go out there at lunch time and unzip the door to let some air circulate through there.