Born in a Barn: 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?