Category Archives: Sodhouse Bank

Another day in the shed

I’ve developed the deepest respect for stonemasons. After another few hours working on the shed, I ache pretty much everywhere. 

Rebuilding a stone wall isn’t easy. There’s a lot of walking backwards and forwards with heavy pieces of stone and lifting and rearranging to get the right fit. 

It’s extremely slow progress and I’m going through a ridiculous amount of sand and cement. But I’m sure it’ll be worth the effort. 

And at least the rock pile in the garden is now smaller. 

Temptation

Since I’ll never see the outer side wall of the shed again, I’ve spent a couple of hours going over the pointing, making sure there were no gaps or obvious weak points. 

I’ve also made a start on the inner wall. 

I’d have done more, but the lure of food and beer on a sunny day was too great.

The rock pile was temporarily reduced, since I’d used some of it on the wall. But adding damp stone from inside the shed increased its size again.

I think that the shed would look good with a wall in front. 

Finished

Well, not really. But I have finally rebuilt the outer side wall of the shed. I’d intended only to point it, but almost all had to be rebuilt. The hole left over from last weekend had to be expanded because the blocks of stone were all loose, exposing more of my neighbour’s garden. 

Thankfully, it’s no longer visible. 

There’s some finishing off to do tomorrow, then I may begin rebuilding the inner layer. 

Another day in the shed

A larger area of wall was tackled today. As with previous sections, the outer wall was in a terrible state. 

So some rebuilding was necessary.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to complete the job. The heavens opened just as I was running low on cement. The rain was so heavy, mixing more was out of the question. 

This presented a problem in that I’d removed a very large piece of stone, exposing the garden of the house behind ours. 

Yes, the black stuff is compacted soil. While I fear that our neighbour’s garden may fall into our shed, I shall try to leave work early enough one day to complete the job. 

While on the subject, the large stone was too heavy to lift. 

And the pile of stone in the garden has grown a little. 

Relaunch

You’ll have noticed that I seldom mention work here. However, I shall now briefly do so. Various IT releases (for example 1.5 and 403, or 4.03) have recently dominated my working life and I’ve realised that I should adopt a more formal project approach to my home life.

I’m thinking specifically of the shed. While obviously not an IT project, a release approach may enhance the organisation of the work going forward. 

So, thinking retrospectively, my shed project has to date progressed as follows:

R1.0 Chimney

R2.0 Exterior pointing – end wall

R2.1 Exterior pointing/rebuilding – side wall

R3.0 Interior rebuilding – rear side outer wall (in development)

I may shortly produce a Gantt chart. 

Extreme pointing

Not wanting to delay too long after finishing the outside walls of the shed, I’ve made a start on the inside. 

I thought it prudent to begin with the part-buried wall. My intention was to remove the inner layer of stone, in sections (to reduce the risk of collapse), then rebuild it. I knew that the outer layer would be in a pretty bad state, but I had to revise my plan when I encountered daylight. 

This section is now repaired, but there’s clearly some work to be done before I can rebuild the inner wall. 

While working on the shed, I’ve started to wonder whether it’s actually older than the house. I’d always assumed that they would have been built at the same time. But my project has walls build from very large blocks of stone. 

Of course, I’ll never know for certain either way. The only known face is that the shed existed in 1865, since it appears on a map from that time. It’s very likely to be older though, because the house dates back to the 1830s. 

Regardless of its age, the ‘s a cool little thing. I do acknowledge that I need to take care to avoid it becoming an obsession.