Wooden It Be Nice

So there comes a time in a man's life when he requires a wooden structure away from the familial home in which he can keep his vast collection of paint stirring sticks, listen to Test Match Special and spend some time in deep contemplation, growing a beard. That time has come. Shed time.

My DIY Dad wholeheartedly agreed with me and the parents popped down last weekend, with Mum delighted to be allocated full-time keeping-Theo-away-from-power-tools duty. After Homebase (better selection, cheaper price and quicker delivery than B&Q, in case you were interested) had delivered the appropriate wooden bits (forty-seven) and we had established that we had enough electric drills (three), we set to with the construction. Actually that's not quite true; I had to go to work on the Friday so he spent the morning digging an 'ole...

Upon my return, there were 28 sacks of rubble, an ex-tree to take to the tip and a base to be bolted together and dropped in...

Standing back, admiring our handiwork I squinted at the frame, leading me to casually remark that it "looked about level to me". So we tested that theory...

Bloody hell, it was! Hurrah, saved about an hour's banging things randomly with hammers :)

The next thing was to get the sides up. There aren't many photos of this process, as it seemed to require a minimum of 6 arms and there were only two of us. Still, we were making progress...

Not surprisingly, the next stage was to tackle the roof. After the obligatory joke about "getting felt up", we did just that (also note classic use of delicate Victorian garden furniture as sweaty bloke's drill storage area, sawmill and workbench)...

By now, it was very late, we were very tired and the door wouldn't close because, it turns out, the adjacent window fittings had been designed by a committee of Venezuelan baboons on acid. In fact, we ceremoniously tore up the instructions at this point and got a load of 2" screws involved. And, suddenly, we'd only gone and built a shed...

The following morning, before dashing off to play cricket near Slough (I know, my rock 'n' roll life, eh?) there was Ye Grande Shedde Openingg with honoured guests and dignitaries from the borough...

And today, one week on, I found myself sat out at the very same spot in a canvas chair with a mug of tea, reading the weekend papers whilst Aggers burbled gently from the wireless and the sun beat down on SE London. Bliss...

Huge thanks to the parents, without whom this project would have been an epic fail, and to Solveig for finally caving in and letting me do it (although I suspect that she is secretly delighted that she now has somewhere to banish me...)