So much for writing up last night - I was exhausted, and in bed by 9!
Tuesday 27th
I'd had a text saying my playhouse would arrive between 10 and 12. Hurrah! Fully expecting it to show up at 11.55, I glumly turned away from the nice, sunny weather, and brought my run frames indoors to mesh them while I waited. I'd put in about 5 staples when this drove past my window at bang on 10am...
I did have a bit of a panic, wondering exactly how many pieces it was coming in! :lol:
My house is a mid terrace, with no side access on the whole street, and the delivery driver wasn't allowed to bring the pieces through. This was the first time I was glad I didn't buy a bigger one! (Observe my still-unmeshed frames behind the playhouse!)
I shimmied the bunnies forwards to give myself working room, and laid down my big, heavy duty tarp, with an old bedsheet on top - to protect the wood from getting damp or scratched on the concrete, and to protect the concrete from paint drips. I thought back over my 'mare of refinishing my hutch/runs, and decided I was going to do this playhouse Properly, so that I only have to do it once. It was sooo tempting to just start putting it together, to see what it looked like in the 'flesh', but resist! Basics first!
I say that...I actually went straight in with the paint first, because I don't learn :roll: I started painting the door first (Top Tip: When painting panels, raise them up on flower pots - this will stop you from painting your groundsheet, and enable you to get to all those pesky edges. It also saves your back!)
I popped on a first coat of Country Cream, and wasn't pleased. Not only did the nail holes spoil my nice paintwork, they also looked like prime candidates for Water Intrusion - not on my watch! Out came the god-awful Tescos all-purpose filler, and armed with a plastic clay sculpting tool (far better than the back of an old teaspoon, fyi), I proceeded to fill in the holes. All the holes. In every panel.
The 1 redeeming feature of Tescos all-purpose filler, is that it can be painted over when dry, and it dries mercifully quickly. It took me about an hour and a half to fill in every exterior nail hole, and while I didn't go wild with it, it wasn't the most perfectly neat job. If you're feeling particularly virtuous, you can go back and sand the filler smooth. By this point, I was far past virtuousness, and just slapped the paint on top. If anyone is ever churlish enough to point this out, I'm calling it 'charm'.
At this point, I picked up the instructions, and was aghast to discover that none of the pieces come pre-drilled. One must drill all of one's own pilot holes, or else the thing is not going together. Recalling the previous day's drill fire, I was understandably uncomfortable about this; but took a deep, British breath, stiffened my upper lip, and gave it a bash.
This is probably what the '2 person' bit of the instructions pertains to, but I found that with enough sweating, and leaning panels against hutches and stacks of paint tins, it really can be accomplished by yourself. There were no drill fires. There have been no more drill fires since. I know, I don't know either.
At this point, I'd been getting a bit carried away in my excitement, and hadn't been taking my advice re. staying hydrated and taking breaks. I'd been working for about 6 hours, but with rain apparently scheduled, I had to make it watertight before I could stop for the day - this meant getting the roof on. I was actually a bit ( probably naively) miffed that the roof didn't come pre-felted - I considered felting roofs to be rather beyond me.
If you've never had to deal with it before, I can tell you that roofing felt is evil. It is heavy, it is smelly, it is stiff, it is rough and hard on your hands, the gritty stuff (professional, I know) falls off if you so much as look at it, and it gets EVERYWHERE - yes, I'm talking bras. Being exhausted, and not adequately fed or hydrated, I didn't read the instructions properly and cut the felt the wrong size. Twice. Thank goodness the roll the company provided was enough to roof 3 playhouses! When I finally got the lengths correct and started to tack it down, I started spacing the tacks WAY too close together, so of course I ran out. I ended up eeking out the last few tacks, so at least the whole thing was semi-held in place, figuring I'd buy extra tacks and secure it properly later on. The most important thing was that it was up!
Capable's Top Tips:
- Try to keep the cat out of the filler. You wont succeed, but he wont like the wet cloth you have to run for, before it dries on his paws
- Start building where you intend the finished product to be - you will NOT be able to move it by yourself once it's built
- In addition: make sure where you're building is solid and lavel - mine wasn't, I had to shove extra shims underneath to steady it. Oops.
- When you're prepping for watertightness, don't neglect the base. I forgot about this, and am kicking myself. I should've painted or treated the base joists, and plastic wrapped the underside of the base
- Stay hydrated, for goodness sake