Paint job

I forgot to take the before picture here. You'll have to take my word for it that this used to be a rather sad-looking faded green pot. Some nice, bright satin paint is going to complement the alpine strawberries (from my mum) a treat. This is an anti snail/insect/other creature attempt to actually get some un-nibbled strawberries: I'll be moving the pot to the deck.

Looking sharp

The front of our shed gets the worst of the west's weather. Chris gave it some armoury to help it through another winter.

Planted up

I finally got around to planting up the new bed in our shady zone (see the project's progress: stage 1 stage 2 stage 3 ). I'm pretty pleased with how it's looking but we've run out of wine bottles for the edging (work in progress). I planted the ten coreopsis grown from seed (not sure I'm going to see any flowers on them this year), three astilbe (£1 each in the (almost) dead plant zone in the garden centre) and three achillea (£1 each as well, I do like a bargain). The larger shrubs at the back were birthday presents: two shrub lilacs and a viburnum (see my May entry). The sparks of colour are gladioli and crocosmia - almost finished now.

We've had one ace barbie on our beach but so far the weather's not been right (and now the local farmers have been spraying so the garden is rather smelly - not very conducive for munching a veggie burger).

Job done

Chris has done another star turn and painted the rusty old gate at the front. Now it's nice and shiney and doesn't clatter so much when I bang it closed (hope he doesn't read this).

Wet deck

Having successfully avoided giving the deck a second coat of preservative (I promised I would do this but failed...doghouse for me), Chris gave in and did a top job. We were amazed at the rain just sitting on top.

How we built our deck

This was our big project last summer (2006). As you can see we had a metre drop from our back door onto the ground. We lived for two years taking death plunges from the door onto the two logs in the pictures. This was okay except on wet days and when you had a basket of washing. Amazingly neither of us (nor any brave guests who dared it - well done Babs, we
remember your elegant attempt) suffered any injury. It was hard work and extremely hot. Here's how we did it:

• cleared the area
• made the platform grid (thick wood struts every 40cm in both directions)
• used the platform on the ground to measure location of holes for the supporting posts. Holes had to be 70cm for each main post. Each was filled with 15cm hardcore (we used gravel as we wanted something fine that could easily be levelled), post in, kept upright with spirit level and filled with postcrete. Kept platform at ground level while posts went in. We later went round the base of each post, building up the the concrete so the rain would drain away
  
• when posts firm, rasied platform little by little, we found using blocks helped (our tressles weren't tall enough). Attached posts with two coach bolts (in both directions)
  
• Nicer job was laying the boards on top - we used clothes pegs as spacers - worked a treat
• Realised we needed second platform for steps (so they wouldn't extend too far into the garden). This meant two more posts and holes needed.
  
• Diagonals needed for steps - we fixed the wood sides and then concreted these in where they met the ground
• Level supports for steps attached and then two boards for each step

Took a few weekends to complete as we hadn't done this before and were thinking/designing as we went. We are really pleased with the finished deck though.