Stu attacks the shed

I think Stu misses his jackhammer as he was out and about with it again this week.

This time he attacked the shed.

The shed is part of the fienile. It is under our new entertainment area and next to the garage. Because the shed is in need of a fairly large renovation, Stu has been using this space as a garden shed only. He has been using the cantina in the house as a work shed for activities such as carpentry and painting.

Previous owners used to keep pigs in the shed. There is a stone floor and an old wooden feeding trough. There is a hole in the ceiling voltini where hay used to be thrown down from fienile above to keep the animals alive during winter. The voltini and walls are cemented, plastered and whitewashed. There are several alcoves around the walls as well as old doorways and windows that have been filled in with unfired bricks as some stage. The bricks are now crumbling with damp so these spaces will have to be re-built in stone. Stu rebuilt one of the windows last year but still has another window as well as two doors to do.

Earlier this week, Stu started removing the cement and plaster from the walls. It is now half finished so we will start to point the walls in the next few weeks.

Today he worked on strengthening the arch over the doorway. This arch supports the weight of a steel i-beam which in turn supports the voltini ceiling. It has a scary looking crack through it which doesn't bode well for the ceiling so this job has recently become a priority. First, he cut bricks and stones from under the arch to make a space. Then he slotted 5 strong hardwood beams into this space. Tomorrow he will push stones into the gap between the beams and the arch, then throw cement amongst them which will ensure that the ceiling stays where it is.

While he was doing this, I lifted and replaced a stone wall around the garden bed at the side of the house. We put a load of gravel on our driveway a couple of years ago and the stone wall around this garden bed ended up below the level of the gravel. Insistent runner grasses and insidious creeping weeds have been infiltrating my beautiful garden far too easily. The newly lifted stone wall will now mean that it is now safely protected from such evils so that it can look beautiful once again!