GARDEN: The Garden Summerhouse Project ~ Part 4 ~ The Big Day

Today is the big day that the Summerhouse was delivered.

After 18 months of planning; cutting a shed; moving a shed; mixing countless bags of sand and cement to concrete a sub base; then buying another shed; the replacing and repairing the boundarys; and finally laying slabs to level the foundation, we finally got there.


Recapping in pictures what has been going on:-

The second shed in situ between the trees.

Laying the slabs

Using the slabs to level the base.  Note the rebar mesh that was against the fence has now been sandwiched between to keep it all together.  The foundation dimensions were 16 feet across by 12 feet deep.  Things were made a lot easier with the hire of a concrete mixer and the luck of having good weather so the job was completed in about three days.

Looking like a dance floor

A little bit of tree surgery was required as the three birches have a tendency to shed a fair amount of leaf fall (see first picture).  I can already foresee the sweeping of the Summerhouse roof happening at the end of every Autumn.  While I was tempting to have the trees chopped down, the other alternative was to lessen the load by removing as many branches as possible.  It was also with the intention of sweeping any debris to the side to decompose, that earth trenches were left at either side.

Thinning the Birches

  

Finally ready to build.

 I still have a few plans: I have several boxes of white tiles from the previous owner in the shed that could be smashed up to make a Barcelona-like broken tile mosaic trim for the front of the base.  The Summerhouse has partial glass sides so I'd like to reposition that large trellis panel and plant and train a honeysuckle so that there is something nice to look out on instead of the fence panels.

In the next few days the Summerhouse will go up.  Watch this space!