The Queen of the One Room Shack

When my Dad was still around, he built a little shack on the farm(which is now on my sisters farm). He did eventually get an inside flushing loo, but the water is heated using a rigged up gas burner and an old beer keg. There is only one light, and two power points, one of which the ceiling light is plugged into. The whole size of the shack is 3 metres ish x 6 meters, including the bathroom, an a HUGE built in wardrobe.

Needless to say, it wasn't my style. I couldn't figure out why he didn't just spend the money and build a big house, you know with a real water heater, and a fire to keep you warm, and a real kitchen with an oven and and and.

Then he bought a property in the Northern Territory, that didn't have any house what so ever. Just an old caravan with a lean-to.

And then he went to Tasmania, and fell in love with the place. I joked with him that maybe he should buy a place down there – and he said that he had given it some serious consideration, and had seen a place outside Burnie that had a bush shack on it.

Then he started calling himself the King of the One Room Shacks.

The FB and I have been spending about 3 out of 4 weekends up on the farm, staying in Dads original one room shack. Now granted I have given it a bit of a make over, and my sister and brother in law added an IKEA loft bed, so it is much improved on version 1 but still the size stays the same.

 

And you know what......it is all the space you need.

 

When we designed the shedhouse, we wanted to make it a bit bigger, so we could have people to come and stay, but still the dimensions are not huge. I am sure you have read about down sizing, only keeping the things you need etc etc, but I think it is the opposite. I think small space make you think about what you REALLY value, rather than the practicality of necessity.

Like, instead of having a better homes and gardens show house kind of thing, instead of a practical fold down table with extra hidden storage, you have your grandmothers old table, because it is precious to you. And instead of getting everything on a kindle you have books. Or double duty glasses, usable for both spirits and wine, you have wineglasses your Dad gave you, a picture of your first calf instead of the 'challenging' work from a new artist. Things like that make any space, no matter how small, into a home.

It turns out we are working on being the King and Queen of the one room shacks ourselves.

We just bought and moved into a one bedroom apartment in Brisbane. And you know what? It is laid out in pretty much the exact same way as our shedhouse will be. The internal space is the same square meterage, the kitchen is based on the same idea. I must have had a subconscious picture of what I wanted in a home in Brisbane based on the work we had done on the home on the Farm.

It has been just under a week since we moved into a peid du terre and it is really nice. And easy. And the dog doesn't hate it, so that is good.

 

Out of financial necessity more than anything else, we have had to slow down the build, but hopefully as soon as things settle down, we can get back into it.

 

We are taking the excess furniture up to the farm this weekend, so it will even start to feel more like a house. There will be pictures of both homes to follow.

 

And a party. There will definitely be a party.

I Love it, cause that’s what your hard work gets you

You know how at points in your life you really think that nothing is happening. That you are just spinning your wheels, and that it doesn't matter what you do, you can't move forward. It feels like you are never going to get 'there'.

Late on Saturday afternoon, we put in the first glass panel. That panel really felt like the shedhouse reality was upon us. And let me tell you, you would have been hard pressed to find a happier, prouder girl in the world.

There we were, nestled in the far reaches of the Condamine river gorge, with Mt Grace and Mt Superbus looking down on us, with clear evidence of all the hard work, tears and tantrums (mostly mine), and it looked spectacular.

This song was running through my head, and I was so damn proud of all the work that the FB had put in. Everything that was in front of us, he had researched, purchased and shipped to site. Every piece has his handprint on it. He worked through bad weather, hangovers and study, a new job, more responsibility and the wet. My god the wet.

Beats the pants off any bunch of flowers or sparkly thing I have ever been given.

Thank you my love.


(On Sunday the FB finished off the flashing and we put in the remaining panels, he also cleaned up the site, so official lock up stage is here. Now onto the trades and internals)


(If you are wondering what I did in this time, do you see the banana lounge in the bottom RH corner of the second to last photo? That's what I did)

Everything will be alright tomorrow

As you may know, I was hoping to get to lock up stage on the shed by the end of April. But of course, life is what happens when you are busy making other plans, so that didn't happen.


What did happen was it rained, and it was cold and we bought a new flat in Brisbane, so time and money were not really on our side.


But this weekend just gone, we got closer to it. There was of course trials and tribulations along the way, some of course of my own making.
I have slight dyslexia, which doesn't make me the best building site assistant. And in my drive *cough impatience* to get the sliding doors in faster, my impairment appeared.

So we finally go the doors on site, and the FB spent what I consider an inordinate amount of time levelling, measuring, chocking, tilting and foofing around (that last one is a technical term), and all I wanted to bloody do was to get the side walls on.

Because the sliding doors are not as big as the space, there is about 80 cm either side that needed to be sheeted in. This required some customisation of the sheeting material – that being notches cut into them to compensate for the 'ribs' of the shed, that on a normal build, would have been inside the shed, but on this one, form part of the verandah. The part of the verandah that holds it up. So - important stuff.

Whilst the FB was foofing, I thought I would help him out by doing the notching. And before the notching, the measuring. Did I mention my dyslexia?

Generally when I measure things I am pretty specific about doing so, measuring twice, three times, writing it down, checking again etc, because it is important to recognise your weaknesses.
This time that did not happen. I was kind of in the way, so the FB was a bit, well cranky, and I was also a bit cranky. So he yelled out the numbers, and I pretended like I knew what they were.
Then I measured it out on the tin, and then cut out the notches with the tin snips. This takes a REALLY long time, but I was determined that I could do it myself. *spoiler this does not end well* After I notched them, then I washed them down to remove all the grass and foot prints. In order to do this I had to cart water from the creek, to the wheel barrow, and rub the sheet with a broom. When that was completed, I blithely picked up the sheet to install it.

So it turns out that 82 cm and 28 cm are different measurements. Which may not have been so bad except for the fact that it was the specially cut sheet with the correct angle at the top to install it on the end of the shed.

The FB kindly pointed this out, I downed tools and commenced the 2km cry/walk back to the shack. Luckily my mum was there to give me a cuddle and a lift part of the way home.
What was the lesson I learned?

1. Don't rush, or be rushed
2. Recognise your strengths and weaknesses, and ALWAYS compensate for them
3. Even when you are a grown up, sometimes a cuddle from your mum is the best thing.

Some pics of the FB's hardwork, completed even though I can't measure.

The bracing that on top of the sliding door frame

The whole floor is in

The tracks!

 

I once had blinds and now I see

Even though the windows have arrived and are on site, there is quite a bit of work to do before they go in.
We need to finish off the floor, and do some work on the deck etc, so I though we could put up the cafe blinds before that.
We bought the cafe blinds from Bunnings quite a while ago - and while they were not cheap, they were alot more affordable than customised blinds – which we do have every intention of getting, when the budget allows.


Now I know that there is a nice easy link here to how to put the blinds up. But we were on site, with no phone reception and no internet conncetion. Well, no power even. So we had to rely on the instructions that came with the blinds. That are written in engrish.
And here are the pictures:

Don't ask me - I'm a dog

Oh my ticky tacky blinds....

If in doubt, use a clamp

Optimal Zipper operation..... check!

Easier the second time though

But at the end of the day, they are up, and really really effective.

Life in Pictures

The windows have arrived!  The fact that they were not wrapped correctly, or that the bloke who delivered them couldn't find the shop in a one horse town is beside the point. They are really here.


For this installment I have decided that it will be a 'picture book' style.


So here goes:

Florrie on the road again

Inside finally!!