After the joys of shed week I have decded to bring back the My Sheddie part of shedblog, where we can get to know the sheddies a bit more, I will try and profile one interesting sheddie a week, The first one was a shed just added the other day, hope you enjoy.
If you would like to be featured in this slot, then let me know, you need to have built your shed yourself or had a major say in it’s build
Sheddies name
Ali Cameron
Shed name
The Monty
Selfbuild or off the shelf shed?
Entirely self designed and mostly built. One mate knew how to drive a digger to level the undershed floor back into the slope. However the summerhouse is a standard product bought from our local timber yard suitably modified to sit on posts
Why have you got a shed? uses etc
1 Needed the space to store garden bitsa and old shed roof leaked and turned to sludge.
2 Enjoyed a raised vantage point so wanted a viewing platform
3 Summerhouse for entertainment of friends.
4 Great for watching wildlife in field below. It seems that birds and animals do not expect people to be above ground level so we become invisible.
5 High plqace for weather station guages
6 Another room for Avril to decorate.
How would you describe your shed?
The Monty is a two-story triple-function wooden viewing platform carrying a summerhouse for the view and with the support posts clad in and polycarbonate windows providing a secure and dry garden shed under the platform. In our garden space is at a premium.
The Monty is named after our much loved cat, who was killed before it was completed, but after we had watched him from the platform hunting in his favourite field.
Who are your shed inspirations?
None really; the shed was built and in use long before we discovered the shed community.
The summer house is of standard ‘log’ cabin construction being based on a kit, thus saving a lot of time. and the cost of specially made doors and windows. The timber cost about £2,000. The hand rails are decorative fence panels a tip from the timber suppliers which alone saved a couple of weeks and a lot of money.
The Monty is named after our much loved cat, who was killed before it was completed, but after we had watched him from the platform hunting in his favourite field.
Future Shed plans
For the shed – more plants – the rather plain rear view should be improved by the trellis being covered – a climbing rose is leading the charge. The undershed is being tailored to the tools stored within. In place of the original shed, stonework will arise, only to collapse to become our very own ruin.
How did you find out about our community?
A ‘Times’ article.
What word would you use to sum up Sheds
Ostrobogulous
Ali has also taken the time to create a detailed insight into his build, on the next few pages.
Backstory to The Monty – our new summerhouse.
The first thoughts behind this started a few years ago when I was cutting our large hedge that separates us from next-door’s garden. It is some 8-10 feet high and needs full stepladder height for its annual hackback. On this occasion, as I reached the bottom of our garden, I paused and looked round to admire our view of the vale spread out beneath our vantage point. I noticed that the 2 metres extra height improved the view by far more than that slight increase in altitude might seem to have offered.
Park that thought in the memory bank. Spool forward several years to the wet weather of February 2008.
“What is that puddle doing on our shed roof?” I asked Avril.
At the bottom of the garden on the other side to the vantage point, sat a generic medium-sized green garden shed. Its chipboard roof had been melted by rainwater leaking through the worn felt. The puddle was replicated within.
Immediate repairs were not recommended as a period of dry weather was an unlikely forecast. On the advise of experts (=mates), temporary repairs were made using a plastic tarpaulin stretched over the whole roof to protect the garden machinery and tools within.
With time for thought I sat at this computer and sketched a simple viewing platform to allow our vista to be enjoyed easily by at least the two of us and two guests. To carry such a load safely, it would need sturdy posts serious concreted into the slope at the bottom of the garden. Call in the professionals. Two weeks later they delivered their estimate; way outside our budget to replace the dead shed. However the summerhouse project was growing as ambition exceeded competence. And designs on a computer rarely wobble. An enquiry to West Dorset Council determined that no planning consent was needed if the height was less than 4 metres. With base set into the slope, it is.
Step forward two good friends Brian and Dave. Brian Holmes has built many a house and has a reputation for helping others of our ken. I accepted his kind offer to oversee the placing and concreting of the 20 odd wooden posts needed to carry the platform – now plus a small summerhouse that our local shed company could offer and erect on the platform. They would also supply a small shed whose walls would enclose the posts, no roof would be needed as the summerhouse floor would do that job. Dave Corneloues, the other friend, would mix and cement our friendship – and also help with the placing of the posts
A few designs and a spreadsheet on the computer showed how we could do the double deck structure and come in almost on budget. Reluctantly, and a little suspiciously, Avril gave her consent. So back to the computer for project organisation – and isn’t wood expensive these days!
But another Brian also well versed in construction came forward with a recommendation for a local – well Honiton -based sawmill which was a lot cheaper than the usual main building suppliers locally. Now the budgets fitted, the summerhouse and sheds were ordered, as was the hire of a minidigger to level the floor and dig the holes for the uprights.
But we’ll pause a moment to set the scene. Our garden starts at the road that runs roughly along the ridge of the hills that separate Marshwood Vale from the Ax valley and, co-incidentally, Dorset from Devon. So the roughly rectangular garden increasingly slopes down to the east. At the bottom, an open fence divides off a field, often fallow but then occupied by growing bullocks. In the left hand corner as seen from the house, at the junction of that hedge and the back fence, a scrubby patch used for bonfires would become the new structure with part of the fence replaced by the posts.
Before we could start, the bullocks weighed in; literally. Smelling Avril’s vegetables set in raised beds a yard from the fence was too much temptation; they leaned over the old fence to reach the sweet smelling peas. Unable to stretch quite far enough they stepped up onto the lower rung and then the middle rung of the fence and reached beans, onions and, at last, the peas.
But, like the cattle’s attitude to our onions, the 30-year old fence posts did not like the 5-6 large bullocks leaning on it and gave way. Normally this would have been a disaster, but three of the seven fence-posts were to have been replaced by the much higher platform posts and the digger had already been ordered. Not only that but Tony, the field’s but not the cattle’s owner, allowed us vehicle access through his farmyard to the site, as well as temporary storage of our wood next to where it was needed.
So the digger arrived – a day and a half late – but that time was usefully taken up in marking the ground. With the highly experienced Brian at the controls the site was rapidly levelled with the blade and the hydraulic auger fitted. The simple act of drilling down became more dangerous as the drill hit large buried stones and kicked back, all but overturning the digger save for Brian’s quick reactions. But just over 24 hours later the holes were dug and the still-intact digger on its trailer back to Bridport.
Next morning the skills gap was established as Dave made the concrete on the front drive, Brian measured, propped and poured around the posts, and I barrowed the cement down the garden.
I know my place.
But this was a job well done and the posts were as solid as we had all hoped. Now it was my turn to deck the uprights to become the platform. But a phone call to the shed builder had revealed a failure of schedule. The under-shed would be delayed by 6 weeks, and the summerhouse even more so. The builders had to devote all their production to building demonstration sheds for the Melplash show.
Luckily experience tells and my building masters made changes. The concrete base was extended to cover what was originally an access path; I had little say in the matter as Dave and Brian used up all the ordered concrete and in doing so added 60% to the floor area. And Brian and Dave showed me how I could clad the posts to make a perfectly serviceable shed walls with shiplap – shaped timber planks. I was not so sure but these changes proved to be the best possible options. They were not the only ones with good ideas, though.
The Blamphayne Sawmill staff have all been outstandingly helpful. Andy in the office would advise on construction and best value, the yard staff dug out just what was needed, and their delivery drivers sweated with me to carry the wood to where it was needed. When I called the wood mill for the extra wood I needed and complained about the summerhouse situation it should have been no surprise that Andy came up with a summerhouse ‘kit’ that they had available. I would have to build it myself but it was larger, more sturdy, better roofed and best of all a lot cheaper. And the extra wood made a substantial further saving as it was cheaper than the tailor-made shed walls now no longer available.
More for less, then.
The platform needed extending as the summerhouse was metrically larger and it would need painting from the inside as each layer of planks were added. But the kit system was all but proof against this particular fool as I had a contact at the kit-manufacturers who would help me if required.
So first the under shed was clad and the walls grew up until window height was reached. Translucent plastic panels ordered to shed water coming through the decking also provided 4 easy to fix windows that lets in light but hides the contents from outside observation. A door to fit between the posts was made at our friendly sawmill. It arrived along with the summerhouse kit.
Up went the walls pausing only to paint each layer of clip together planks. The weather, up till now behaved perfectly but as rain came down another emergency tarpaulin reduced the problems. A tall neighbour, Bill Harrison, helped me place the four roof sections in place and we were standing dry and high.
Very high. Vertigo high. Gulp! I thought.
But this was my job and I concentrated hard, especially when tiling the roof panels. 4 metres of fall always focuses my mind and the heavy felt tiles needed to be placed systematically. Working from each side in towards the ridge was just acceptable if I could just fail to fall. I approached the worst bit. Moving away from the ladder, this involved sitting astride the roof ridge, placing and fixing the complex shaped tiles, with glue and tacks. I bottom shuffled from one end to the other – and then dismounted onto the for once welcoming ladder! But in spite of my fears it was done. And I did not fall off
Avril chose three exterior colours and two interior colours of wood treatment. Our paint-as-we-built approach had been less than totally satisfactory, and extra coats were needed. Ladder work true enough, but after the giddy heights of the roof, acceptable. One very useful tip from Andy was to use decorative fence panels as railings at the edge of the platform; far easier to fit and make firm than the usual handrail, posts and spindles. Simpler and as cheap, it looks better.
From her past, Avril supplied some Indian brass lanterns, which now eco-light the summerhouse in the evenings. A high-level water butt takes rain from the roof and fills a watering can via a tap. As the butt will more than fill overnight, an overflow is arranged fill the pond and/or spout into the field.
Afterwards the old shed was taken down and the walls, which turned out to be quite sound, ‘free-cycled’ to nearby Thorncombe. Floor, roof, felt and detritus were environmentally recycled by natural combustion. Ash and spare topsoil has formed our third raised vegetable bed. Spare wood from the project has been used as a dustbin store and, with trimmings from the tiles, a bird table. And quite possibly a tree-camp elsewhere in the vale. A mast, folding for access, now carries the wind and temperature instruments of a weather station – Ali’s Christmas present from Avril.
In place of the shed, stonework will arise, only to collapse to become our very own ruin.
Even whilst under construction the platform was climbed on and enjoyed by our cats. But more surprisingly we found that they, along with the wild life in the field would not notice anyone up so high above them. We call the two-story shed and summerhouse ‘The Monty’ after our favourite cat, who was killed before it was completed, but after we had watched him hunting in his favourite field.
Roll Credits:
- Avril Cameron – Art design, catering and permission
- Dave Corneloues – All-purpose building and aerial stunts
- Bill Harrison – Aerial stunts
- Brian Holmes – Masterbuilder and digger-meister
- Andy Spencer – Blamphayne Sawmills
- Tony Studley – Access
And if you don’t believe any of this, come and have a look!
Bookings taken!