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A simple building project

It all started two years ago when I was harvesting storm-felled trees from neighbour's forest. That project left me with a few decent stacks of sawn timber. And about a year ago I drafted a plan for using that timber. I decided to build a simple shed to keep the car. It is handy, especially in the winter. No more need to clear snow and ice, and for that it is enough to have a shed without a door - just on opening big enough to drive the car in and out. Then I thought that if I'm anyway going to build a new structure, then why not add a little bit to it. So, on the southern end there will be a small separate room, with big windows and some insulation. That kind of room would be good for growing saplings early in the spring when it is still too cold to plant anything outdoors.

I started the building project in May. And thought that it would be finished before the autumn gets cold and rainy. Oh well. Things were slowed down partially because of my work schedules being mixed up by the covid situation. And partially because of me increasing the level of ambition. Instead of using Leca blocks for the cornerstones I wanted to learn to split stone. For there anyway has been that big natural stone next to my house, and I've been thinking that the best way to remove it would be to split it to smaller pieces. The method to split stone is somewhat simple - first drill 16mm holes in a row, some 15 cm gap between each hole. Then place special kind of wedges into each hole, and hammer gently, one after one, back and forth. And eventually the combined force of a row of wedges is going to make the stone crack and split. I'll post a separate blog post about this, the next summer =) Yes, I managed to split a lot of that stone, but it was slow (It would be faster with a heavy-duty drill. Boring the holes is the slowest part.) And it wasn't always easy to get anything like regular shapes, so there is still a lot to learn. Anyway, late in autumn, with a little help from friends, I got all the corner stones set to their places. And the basics of the wall structure was up.

After that I have been working with the project every now and then, when time allows. Since October I have been allocating a lot of time for a new game project, prioritizing that over my own building projects. And this year I have greatly enjoyed a new sense of balance in my timetables and work. I'm very happy for people supporting the game project, and I have kept my main work down to bare minimum. So I have had a lot of days at home, without any external timetables. Each day, depending on the weather I have had the freedom to allocate my time in between building and coding. For the past few days it has been something like this: Waking up early in the morning, before the sunrise. After the morning coffee and porridge a hour or two of coding. Then working outdoors until the dusk (after 4 pm, it is). Then food and more coding until it is time to go to sleep. And most of the days have been mainly coding, and then taking a hour or two break working outdoors. This is pretty much the way I have been dreaming of, and I'm deeply thankful for all the project backers who have made this possible, at least for these weeks!

I hope to get the roof and walls done, and now it looks like that is possible within a week. Everything else can be left for the summer, for it is anyway easier and nicer to do this kind of work when it is warm. So, once the roof and walls are done, I'll have even more time for coding.

I'd like to finish this post with two music links. For no particular reason, or maybe because of the covid situation there hasn't been that much live shows, so streaming comes to the rescue =) First a folk tune composed by Konsta Jylhä (1910 - 1984), who was born into a family-line of folk musicians. The piece is titled Kesän tullessa, which translates as something like 'when the summer comes'. And then another pick, Kirohevonen ("A cursed horse", I'd guess) by Pekko Käppi and his band. A lot of traditional instruments are used, and the deep folk roots are energetically combined with rock, making it sound ancient and modern at the same time. The piece ends with line "I find bitterness more scary than death".

The cornerstones
The cornerstones
Building the supporting structure for the roof
Building the supporting structure for the roof
tags: 
diary
homesteading
music
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Comments

No Härre Gud....

Did you saw the timber into planks yourself? If so, with what method?

Oh, no! There's a professional sawmill some 5 km away from my home, so we took the logs there. With all the modern machinery it took two full working days to saw the logs into heaps of boards and planks.

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