DIY



I have been wielding the cordless drill with joyful abandon recently. If only I had realised that DIY was this much fun! For years now I have been hunting for this 'Postal Mail Only' sign. I knew I had bought one, but I couldn't find it anywhere. Finally it turned up while The Man was cleaning out his shed before I left the old house. I was so excited! Now I can elegantly refuse junk mail:)


I love this cowbell. It was a Christmas present many years ago. It came from India, via the Oxfam shop. I am very happy to report that I have not bought a single new decorative item for my new house. It is all about reusing my old favourites, bringing them out of storage, dusting them off and hanging them up. Actually, now I come to think of it, I bought two houseplants. But the pots are reused:)


Benson-the-bad-dog has discovered he can jump over this section of fence to chase the cats. This week at work I had not one but two neighbours ring me to let me know they had returned Benny to the fold. I have such lovely new neighbours.


Today I bought a bog-standard fence topper panel from the hardware shop and sawed off one leg (not mine, the fence panel! Though the other is always on the cards with me and tools), and screwed it onto the fence. I am SO proud of this very ordinary achievement.


The first retaining wall post! I had these sleepers delivered the other day from a local timber mill. They are a family operation, with very reasonable prices. Their delivery truck has a wooden truck bed that is growing grass from when they carted hay last summer. Makes it a pleasure to buy local.



I borrowed a friend's circular saw to cut the sleepers in half for posts. I didn't cut off my leg:) In the end I managed the post holes with only one bag of cement per post. BUT two posts are a little wobbly. I think I used too much water. I may have to top up those two holes with another half bag of cement. Will that work? When it stops raining..


When it rains I come inside and put up dozens of screws and nails for Posy's pictures in her room. Now she can't ever change any of her furniture around. Then I put up pictures in my room. I never change furniture around because I Fear Change.


On the right is my great-grandmother's school slate. I have a slate pencil somewhere. When I find it I will write something pithy. All the other pictures are from the op-shop and the mirror I bought years ago but could never find exactly the right place to hang it, so I left it on top of the wardrobe. Finally it is on the wall. I think I need one more picture on the left to balance everything..

Tell me about your DIY projects. I love to see people making their lives their own. My brother, for instance, is handpainting his motor bike paisley. Because why wouldn't you?


Comments

Sherri said…
Fantastic Jo. I am so impressed. If you can do please post a picture of your brothers motor bike when it is finished. I am very curious to see the finished job. I think it is lovely that you have your great-grandmothers school slate, a lovely link to your past.
Jo said…
Sherri, I did try to post a picture of a panel that he has already done, but it wouldn't load:( It is very elegant, white on black, a beautiful exercise in draughtsmanship, and completely out of my DIY league:)
Unknown said…
So very impressed - you go girl. Lovely picture/frame/slate arrangements.
Jo said…
Lynda, thank you. I am getting much satisfaction from taking things out of cupboards and putting them on the wall. Now I have cupboard space:)
Fernglade Farm said…
Hi Jo. I'm very impressed. With the wobbly post, I'd suggest clearing some of the soil - incidentally, you have excellent soil there! - away from the timber and adding a product called General Purpose Cement. It comes in 20kg bags and is the cement component of the Fencecrete product (that fencecrete stuff also includes sand and small rocks described by the fancy name: aggregate). If there is a lot of water in the ground around the post which caused the fencecrete to not cure properly, that stuff will absorb all of it and hopefully that will do the trick. If the fencecrete is still soft and workable, mix the GP cement into it and don't be tempted to add extra water - unless it remains powdery after a day. It should set in about a day at this time of year and cure in about a week.

Incidentally, how wet has the past month and half been? I like rain and all, but sometimes one only requires so much of the stuff! :-)! Seriously, I'm not complaining as it is all good.

It is funny, but you have the same circular saw that I use here. It is tough stuff that one, although plastic chunks of the tool can fall off from time to time which is part of the reason I guess that they stopped selling them.

The cowbell is awesome too! Love it.

I shall not take over your comments section with talk of DIY, but I have been juicing litres and litres of lemon juice today in a new fruit press (nice!) and I would be curious to hear of any uses for lemon juice that you may be aware of. There is an estimated 15 litres of the stuff more than I actually need. I'm not even sure how to store the stuff that is not being frozen... Help!

Cheers

Chris
Jo said…
Chris, thank you for that useful concrete fix. I realise now that the concrete had set - it's just that I wiggled the posts around after the concrete started setting, and that created a little pocket of space which left a wobble. However, being as I couldn't pull the post out and being as there is so much post in the ground, I figured it wasn't going anywhere so I just filled the rest of the hole with soil, and pushed the horizontals against it and they feel very solid, so here's hoping it won't all fall downhill. I have done the first row, two to go:)

Lemon juice - lemon cordial. Delicious.

http://suburbanjubilee.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/lemon-cordial.html

Limoncello with peel:

http://alltheblueday.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/living-better-withalcohol.html

Candied Lemon Peel:

http://alltheblueday.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/lemony.html

Also make lemon marmalade with the peel. Yum:)

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