Window Ledges

A couple of days when a lot has been done but nothing feels like it has changed.

Although yesterday we agreed that we are getting there and that is very evident by the dwindling amount of materials we have left, we originally bought a box of 900 screws, 3" long, and we have perhaps 40 left, we estimate there are over 1100 screws in the structure so far, and not finished yet.

The trim work on the left hand side is done and painted with half of the exterior stain that remains, we probably have an inch or so left in the tin, it will all be used. As you can see, there are short lengths of trim to be added on the bottom windows, they're not really needed, but we will add them, same is true around the big "patio door" windows, lots of little jobs and everything needs a lick of paint.

Added yesterday were the window ledges inside.

The inside needs painting, we have some of that interior latex left, so that will do, we will painting the window ledges, which are pressure treated wood, with the base color, we have some of that left and it is "good stuff" and we do not want to waste it.

The definition of "good stuff" is oil based stain that smells unhealthy and cannot be cleaned up with soap and water, nowadays the stuff they call paint thinner does not work either, we think there is an inch of that stain left in the tin and it will be used so that we only take empty containers to the disposal yard.

Over half a century has passed...

In the last 24 hours my mind has been tormented by a thousand thoughts from every possible angle imaginable, but the overall theme of those thoughts has been happiness.

It was way back in time, perhaps 1969 or more probably, 1970. I came down the stairs on the morning of my birthday and my mum and dad had managed in the previous weeks to hoodwink me into the belief that the object I saw before me was unobtainable. 

Apparently it wasn't.

Yet, this story is not about that, it is about this :

It is my birthday on Wednesday and yesterday I was looking on marketplace and by odd chance (because I was not searching for it) found a later example of the same object. 

I suppose I should reveal what I'm going on about :

The bike that mum and dad bought me over half a century ago was a Raleigh Chopper, the MK1 version, nicknamed by Raleigh at the time as "The Hot One" and over the years they released the MK2 and this of many variants that they called the MK3 which would have been on sale between 2004 and 2012, with some old stock being available up to 2018.

There is a however, the above article which does not have the correct seat arrangement for a MK3, and it is either from a MK1 or MK2 or possibly a third party reproduction seat, regardless, there are no complaints here and my ongoing mission will be to improve this old bike as well as I can.

I will be repeating what I did all those years ago, polishing my chopper once again!

Less than an hour on an overcast day.

There was a reluctance to go outdoors this morning, it had rained overnight and the sky was overcast and perhaps threatening another shower or two, we looked at each other and agreed we should try it for half an hour.

It was a bit chilly, but extra layers and moving around helped and in a short period of time, probably 45 minutes, we installed both the sliding windows in the upper half of the left side, as has been typical of the entire greenhouse build, dimensions worked with us and it was as though we had planned it.

There we have it, the view from indoors which is now mostly sheltered from the elements. There are holes to fill of course, but we left it at this today, the windows slide as they should, the frames installed easily and we were pleased with the job and happy to go indoors for a hot chocolate.

Another photo from outside :

There are many small jobs available for the next few days, trim work, installing the rest of the "nailing strips" which are actually screwed in, fitting some wood around the periphery of the sliding windows, creating polycarbonate triangular frames for the gable ends, fixing a few leaks and also some painting.

All of that to be done before we fit the door.

One Half

Another day, and as predicted, the mirror image pair of windows went in a lot smoother than our previous effort, oddly though, time drifted away in exactly the same manner.

The upper windows are similar but are double the width and each one features a sliding window which will be great for temperature control. We decided to leave them for another day and finished off by starting to fill in the upper frame with two of our 5x4 pieces, rain is forecast overnight so we are not sure if we will complete this tomorrow.

One Quarter

The remaining windowless space is obtaining windows.

We have lost track of the terminology, I think at one point we were calling this the back side but it makes more sense to call it the left side. This was an example today of how it takes time to learn a method, in theory tomorrow, on the mirror image, we should take less time, especially as we have already cut some of the wood for what we will call the lower left side of the left side. 

This is what the lower right side of the left side looks like now :

Fatigue is a strange thing, at one point a job that should have taken a minute or so took almost fifteen, I would say it was a simple job, but most of the individual elements are simple jobs, there was a moment where too much time was spent and we both knew it.

However, after that annoying moment, the two windows went in very quickly.

New Post, like the old one

The "centre" post has been added with the two 4x4 pieces for the lower window frames, I use quotes there because all our tolerances have stacked up and if we measure the centre at top and bottom, the post does not look true to the greenhouse frame, and the visual is everything.

As with all the construction on this project, there is always a compromise and somewhere along the way the base dimension on this side has not quite matched the top measurement, so the visual lines of the other side of the greenhouse have been used and "relatively" it is square.

Hey, it's a $427.91 greenhouse!

The Final Wall - planning stage

The last two patio windows were installed today, so that leaves a hole to put a door in and the final wall windows, as with the first wall of windows, planning is required :

The hole measures approximately 140" x 73.25" after we add the last length of 4x4 tomorrow which will, in effect, be the lower window sill for the bottom row.

The vertical stack up for the fixed windows on the bottom row will be 33.25" + 4" which means that we have 73.25 - 37.25 = 36" gap. The upper sliding windows will mount on a 34.5" width with approx 1.5" flange all around, nice and easy to mount. This means that we have 1.50" to fill along the top of the window, a very convenient number for a 2x4.

We live in hope.