When my lad was about 14, we spent an afternoon cutting up pallets, and made a patio table (round just to be awkward) and chairs...his DIY skills are not too bad, and he has inherited my love of upcycling and power tools and an appreciation of how useful pallets are. He is going to do the heavy lifting this spring when I start to build a combined shed and summerhouse I designed. The curved roof is the trickiest bit I think without splashing out on glulam beams, but the whole thing will mainly be made out of fenceposts and scaffolding planks. My lad has decided that we can't just have doors and windows because that would be boring, and has worked out the mechanism to get the whole front of the summerhouse bit to lower down and become decking (counterweights and ropes unless I come across a cheap actuator so that I can make it powered) My daughters on the other hand have no interest in DIY, and will happily pay someone else to do the job unless I can do it for free. Can't win them all I guess.
Gruellingly realistic. The photography is fantasti Wow. I'd like to see pictures of that when it's done. My experience of DIY is that I can do it, but I have no real interest in doing big projects. I'll take out an old bath and put a shower in, fit new plumbing and boiler, enclose a stairway for storage, etc... That sort of thing, but I don't look to do it. As far as recycling stuff. back in the late 70's my brother bought an old post-war pre-fabricated house that had been dismantled. He has a very large back garden, but the pre-fab lay there for a few years. Then we got together and scraped the crap off it, 100% sealed it [asbestos fibre cement remember] and then laid a big concrete base and steel frame to take it. Then it went together like a big jigsaw puzzle. It's still standing today as a garage and has two pro-standard pits in it with lighting and all the amenities. A few years ago he asked me to build a room within it so that he could have a computer down there and a bench for small/delicate work. That's done now. I maintain my bike in the place with a pump-up bike table. Wish he wouldn't store so much crap though. Takes up far too much room. It's a garage, not a shed, and he forgets that. Must admit, I do like pallets.
What you doing at the weekend TSS??? I have a bath in the garage ready to go in, a new shower and tiles ready for tiling.... I can cook you a lovely roast Now the clincher.... I have a pallet down the side of my house and you can do what you want with it...
I am not sure I could afford to move back to my home town. 5 years ago (now), my Dad was looking to sell my Grandmother's house after she passed and my wife suggested we buy it and do it up. It needed a lot of modernization which made it just too costly. One of the benefits was being close enough to have a season ticket.... 6 months on from that, we got season tickets anyway from here
Tenants ! Southampton is a great place to keep a house as a landlord. Lots of professionals require housing. You make your money back on the spend and you have an appreciating asset. Those modernisation costs must have been enormous to turn down the opportunity.
It was a tough call. The house value as it was a big jump from the house we had then and then we needed to spend a hell of a lot to get it to where we wanted. I always said I would never move back to my home town, but it was tempting. End of the waterloo line is one reason why the house prices hold well there.
I said the same when I moved away. There are the odd times when I wish I hadn't returned, but I realise that Southampton is pretty much located in the best part of the UK for me. OK, the city isn't the prettiest or most interesting place, but the links to elsewhere nearby are fantastic. I very nearly moved to Port Isaac, of all places, when me and my partner split up !
You can only say such a thing from a position of ignorance. We live in one of the most historically important places in the country. You are all saying you have a blank weekend well use it to learn about your city. Every weekend at 1.30 pm from the lions by the Bargate they do historic walks. If you haven't been on one then go and come back on here and dare to say then that Southampton isn't interesting. The very lovely Mrs Godders and I went on one and we are still talking about it a year later.
That's right, take it the wrong way St.G. There are more interesting places in the World, so that makes Southampton not the most interesting place. Doesn't mean to say it's not interesting. But you carry on and extract the negatives.
Scaffold boards: The love of my life. How on earth they aren't £30 apiece amazes me. I've made a couple of very nice desks out of them (helps that I have a thicknesser). I'm building a 3m x 5m garden office this summer, all to be faced with tongue and groove varnished scaffold boards. Vin
Watched it tonight. Absolutely stunning (in my opinion). Mesmerising and incredible - Oscar worthy no doubt. Though my girlfriend, sister and niece weren't impressed, so I guess it's a "guy" film. Amazing camerawork and great acting. I thought it was brilliant - and I don't care what the women thought
Godders, I have the Ramblers for my walking. We sometimes walk around the city anyhow. But since you take a great interest in the city, can you tell me where the WWII bullet holes are in town? The ones from a German aircraft which apparently strafed one of the streets. I've yet to find them and I can't find evidence of them on the Net.
The timber came up lovely for your desk, and your office sounds like it'll be splendid Vin. Are those standard 38 x 225 x 4000 boards you'll be using to face it with? I'm going to use mine as part of the structure once they're tongue and grooved, so that the overall thickness of the walls is kept to a minimum and still allows me to put a decent amount of insulation on the inside, rather than using them to clad the structure which will only be 3m x 4m. I'm also using scaffold boards to make the 4m curved roof beams which is going to be a challenge keeping them light and strong at the same time. I'm not putting windows in at all, and instead am going to drill a load of 25mm holes in concentric circles where the windows should be, and plug each hole with a piece of acrylic bar cut to length - it'll allow enough light through to be able to see well inside, but I figure the front will be open most of the time that I'm likely to be in there so the "windows" are largely just there for aesthetics. It also means that when the front is lowered, you will be able to walk all over it as there won't be windows that need to be covered in order to use the front wall as decking. The shed part is going to have a door that is split half way, so that the top half swings upwards, and the bottom half swings down and becomes a ramp so that the current mrs Rorschach can get her lawnmower in and out easily, cos I'm caring like that I want to put in a little cast iron wood burner in one corner though, so that I can use it as my man cave in the winter months and I'll have electric lighting and sockets for when I do use it at night or when I don't want the front lowered. Just need to buy half a forest worth of timber and I'm good to go.
It's a standing joke in my family TSS, that whatever anybody needs whether it's a washing line or or a bed - I'll offer to make it out of pallets.
Related (and very interesting), a map of bomb falls over two nights in 1940. https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/soton-blitz-map.jpg Vin
Mine too, such a plastic. But just like your son Fran, he finally saw the light and errors of his ways. Had to take him to Old Trafford for his birthday one day, We all met in the visitors lounge and everyone was asked where they were from and we said Southampton and the guide said "we will not talk about Southampton ", the previous week was the "grey shirt" debacle, priceless! It rained all day and I could not wait to get out of Manchester, never to return.
