The sheds foundation finished Sunday, 15-Dec-24 21:14:32 CET

Sunday, 22-Dec-24 19:44:47 CET

The barn build

This week, the barn was built. Last week, we called it a shed, but this week, we realized it is a barn, not a shed.

Monday 16 December

This morning, I sprinted out of bed when the alarm clock sounded. There was no time to lose; I had to get the vibratory plate compactor back to the lease company before the trucks and buses of the building company rolled in on our driveway.

Getting from the sea container to the driveway is risky, as the clay is loose. The machine is 80 kilograms, like a grownup person. I had got the compactor to the small trailer when the first bus from the building company rolled in. It had a crane behind the but. I greeted the driver and came the next bus with a trailer. On that trailer, there were wall elements of the barn. I also greeted this driver. I explained that I would finish loading my trailer so that they could get full access to the driveway.

So said, so done. I got the 80-kilogram useless compactor onto the trailer, fastened it properly, and moved the car out of the way for the barn builders. Then I went to the city, and while driving, I discovered that one of my front lamps had stopped working. There is always something breaking. Not once can things "just" work.

I arrived at the rental shop. Explained the situation. They were helpful. I could rent the compactor another time. They will fix the machine, and everything will be fine. Not renting the compactor was not an option. I decided to give it a try at the beginning of next year. When I came home, I parked elsewhere so the builders would have full access to the driveway. It was still early when I came back. My regular working day had yet to start.

The builders started by applying a wood beam on top of the stones. The wood beams were fastened in the threaded rods. Next, they mounted the vertical parts of the metal beams that would hold up the hall of the barn.

	The first load of barn pieces.

Then, they placed the first wall element on the foundation. It was the door to the hall from the canopy part of the barn. It might appear odd that there is an outside door inside the barn. It will make sense when the canopy is placed above the door. I missed the haul of the building element because I was working. I had a good day working from home.

I thought they would haul the third element to be placed on the foundation. They lifted the element, and it swirled around in the wind. I wonder why they have no rope connected to the part to avoid having it swivel around freely. They let it lean onto the container instead of putting it on the foundation. I noticed the pieces were not all stacked on the trailer in the order the builders needed the pieces. Sometimes, they had to lift something off to get to another piece.

Next, it was time for the horizontal steel beams to connect to the vertical steel beams. We wanted to make good use of the barn attic, so the barn had to have metal for the floor to rest on. If we just wanted a less valuable, narrower cavity under the ceiling, it would have been possible to let the roof rest on the side walls, and in that case, no metal beams would have been necessary.

They borrowed our ladder. It is a good ladder with an extra wide bottom, and it appeared taller than the ladders they had brought the first day. They used it throughout the day.

The metal beams are embedded in the wall but stick out just slightly. We have to figure out how we will deal with that. I want to cover the wall with wall material on top so you do not see the beams on the ground floor. We will pounder about these things when the builders have finished the building.

A considerable amount of foundation will be visible below the wood surface. I know that all building experts would think we fill up with soil around the building relatively high, but we want something else. We want the soil to be horizontal and easy to walk on, and that is it.

Probably, the builder did not put this in the offer. We will see how this pans out. Here, in this photo, we are seeing the east side of the building, and there, I want the same type of wood and concrete panels as I worked with this summer. On the north side, we want the soil to gradually reach almost to the top of the concrete floor of the canopy on a gentle slope. On the west and south sides, we want the soil almost to the level of the concrete floor. The west side is already higher because of the road. When building the road, they deposited much of the dugout on the side of the road. It forms a "natural" gentle slope towards the north.

After placing the south wall, they started to wind down. They stacked the remaining building elements to lean on the east wall and the container. A stack of beams on the driveway was moved to the side.

When they moved the last package, the younger crane driver got help from the other driver. They did not pass around the remote to the crane. They had different roles. I wonder if the younger man had a crane certificate and the older man did not. I will see if I can find out tomorrow. The facial expression of the younger driver is funny in this photo.

When the builder left, I fetched the car and the trailer. Then, I blogged the rest of the evening, a total of 916 words, which is excellent for a Monday.

I repaired the left headlamp of the car! In the process, I noticed that the car shop had forgotten to put a plastic bolt on the right headlamp, but the bolt was still under the bonnet. Unfortunately, I discovered that the lamp house has got moisture inside. I have never seen that before. I will need to talk to the garage about that. It is not a good idea to have moisture inside. At least, that is what I am guessing.

Tuesday 17 December

Today, I could not find any fresh synonym for getting out of bed promptly. The builders arrived at 7 AM, and they had a trip of almost an hour to get to us. That must mean they get up at four or five AM—horrible thought. DW had got a cold. She is coughing a lot. I am feeling fine still.

To begin with, the builders placed the crane along the road. They loaded the first two floor parts. Then, it was time for a pause.

	A floor element with an opening. That is the place for a ladder to the attic.

The opening on the floor is the hole through which we will get to the barn attic. The floor parts were loaded in an inconvenient order. They attempted to mount the third part, but that was not possible. First, they had to mount the second part. The parts were lying on the road. Surprisingly, there was little traffic while they did this. There were no trucks and no complaints for blocking the traffic. The third part had to wait for more of the west wall to be finished and the rest of the internal wall next to the door.

Then, it was time for a break. During the break, we discussed how to move the crane. I suggested moving the road plates where they wanted to put the crane. The crane driver was not overly enthusiastic about the idea. The thing is that the digger machine has heavily beaten the place next to the container. Right now, there is a thick layer of fluffy clay. I saw on the internet that the plate would weigh 400 kilos, and the crane could carry that weight. I ended the discussion by saying they were the professionals but strongly recommended using the plates.

They decided to make use of the road plates. First, the crane was parked halfway between the road and the new location. Then, they lifted over the road plates to the new location.

The driver told me the plates were 420 kilograms per plate. There is a weight indication in the crane.

The rest of the operation was supposed to be flawless, but driving a radio-controlled crane to its location is more challenging than you believe. The crane came with one wheel next to a road plate. What should we do now? Well, the vehicle had jack posts in all four corners with platforms. They could lift the wheels from the ground, and then we could rearrange the road plates, let down the crane, and continue to drive it to the correct location. That was close.

Next, they moved the final part of the west wall to the foundation. When that was done, they had to fasten it because it would not stand stable if there were to come a wind gust. That meant they had to continue to work a little longer until they could have their next break.

With the crane closer to the north side of the barn, it was possible to move the parts they had not moved yesterday. The front of the canopy wall could be put in place.

 

You must pay attention to the sun in the following sequence of pictures. It was showing a couple of seconds today. We had the most prolonged period of no sun; it was overcast for around 10 or eleven days. It was 32 years ago that we had a similar long period of overcast days in the Netherlands. The west side of the inner canopy wall was moved to the correct place.

	The sun! Or a Swedes are saying it: "Solen!"

Then the sun was gone again, and we returned to the regular grey overcast.

DW and I had lunch, but the shed builders decided to continue. It was not the moment to take a break. They wanted to have the walls firmly secured from wind gusts.

The trailer with parts was moved to the driveway. From there, the crane could lift the parts to the building's location.

They are moving to the top of the north wall above the canopy. It also has beams mounted on the inside to make it possible to mount planks on the inside. The thing is that some of the beams were too long because the piece needed to match up with the corner—a little mishap.

I could see how the wind swirled around with the wall part above the canopy when I noticed a wind gust pushing the remaining part from the trailer. It fell on the PVC pipes I have lying there. It did not fall on the large grapevine and not on the roof tiles. In a way, we were lucky. The wall element was the inner walls of the restroom. They can have a dent here and there without any issues.

Then, they lifted the remaining metal beams and mounted them. Now, with this, the support for the roof beams is ready. They moved the fallen element and placed it in the attic. This was the last task for the day, except for tidying up and making the trailer ready to go back to the workshop. They did not need the crane elsewhere, so it stayed there.

 

While loading the dishwasher this evening, I listened to Ukraine-The-Latest podcast. It occurred to me that if another country decides they are at war with your country, you have no choices. That is it; you cannot opt out. The same holds for bystanders. You can act as if nothing happened and let everything be. The question then becomes: On what side of history will you end? It is not so that Putin will give you any options. No support for him, and you are against him. If that is an issue, then again, no opt-out is possible. So, do you want to support war criminals, or do you oppose them? That is the option.

Another thing I have been pondering about is the illogicalities that Russia is using. They perceive that Ukraine does not exist. You would think something that does not exist should be allowed to seek membership in NATO. Another strange thing is that Russia is concerned by all Russian speakers in Ukraine who surely would love to live in Russia, no? Then, the cities they are invading are bombed to rubble. The language skills of rubble are rather lousy, and there are indeed no humans anywhere to be seen.

I never expected propagandists to adhere to logic anyway. They play with words.

I blogged in the evening. I reached 2131 words. If I do a thousand words daily, I will be at 7k at the end of the week. Well, we will see about that. Last week, I was more productive than 97% of all users of the spell-checking service I use. That is not that surprising, as I am writing right now. What surprised me considerably was that I was more accurate than 98% of all users. How is that possible?

DW and I talked about the shed. She looked up the definition of a shed, and we are building a barn. Sheds are small, and this building is vast. So it is a barn.

Wednesday 18 December

Today, I worked from home for the first half of the day. DW was sick today. Right after the alarm clock sounded, I went out of bed and started making breakfast. Last night, Merida was sleeping next to me. She is a warm cat. I brought tea to DW. She had a day off but was not well at all.

Just as the builders arrived, I arranged for our second building lamp to be operational. I had a tripod that I broke when I did surveying in Sweden last time. It is still broken. I duck-taped the legs so that the tripod would stand up. The builders got coffee and started working. Then, on top of all this, the municipality came to the door and told me they would control the sewer tanks. I showed them around, and they had forgotten their torch, so mine came in handy. They were happy with the content of the sewer tanks. While at it, I gave the sheep their morning portion of hay.

When all this had happened, the clock was only 8 AM. I was surprised that it still was that early. I logged in to work and released a new version of the software I am working on. It was received with enthusiasm.

There were only a few hauls today. Most of the big stuff was already in place.

	The first batch of roof beams are lifted to the attic. The second batch still lies beside the letterbox.
	Most of the beams in the canopy and attic are mounted.
	The builders are working on the fascia board on the south side.
	The hole for the ladder to the attic. We also got a nice ladder delivered, but we will keep that in the sea container until the concrete floor is finished.
	Here, the first cross-steel strap is mounted on the roof.
	Fascia boards on the north side. All steel straps are mounted.
	The fascia board is mounted.

There are a couple of smaller stones that broke. They have to be replaced. It was more windy today. There will be less wind tomorrow.

I asked my manager if it would be okay if I worked from home tomorrow, and that was okay. The roof plates will be mounted tomorrow. How will it go with the rain and the wind tomorrow?

In the evening, it rained heavily. I picked up food at the food corporation. Then I cooked a simple meal for DW and me. She was not feeling well. I hoped she would call in sick tomorrow, but that is not an option. She had meetings planned that she could not cancel. I decided to make a cartoon about that.

Thursday 19 December

Today, I got up again in a timely fashion. The significant task for today was to put on the barn roof. Now, what happened to the shed? A shed is a small building, and we decided this is a barn. It sounds like the Englishmen that went up a hill and down a mountain. We don't have much drama like in the novel, but this is a barn.

	It was still early morning hours when I brought the garbage bin for the paper to the pickup place. On the way back, I took a photo of the barn lit by the crane light.
	It will be delightful to remove that sea container.
	The roof-laying specialist arrived. The show could begin.
	The first plates arrive at 10:18 AM. We could calculate the mean time for each plate. But I have not counted the plates. One thing is clear: this man is quick.
	He lays out a rope ladder and screws the roof plate onto the building.
	The last roofplate for the west side of the building. This is at 11:08 AM.
	It is wet on the floor of the attic. There is more rain on the way in.
	One person prepares the panels on the ground. One drives the crane. The roof laying specialist on the roof. It is an oiled steam machine team.
	The canopy is taking shape.
	The last roof plate is put on at 11:56 AM.
	Minutes later, the crane is packed.
	It is time to drive the crane to the road. Unfortunately, the front wheel is taking some bashing.
	The front wheel broke.

Now, the barn had a roof. I removed the water on the floor in the attic. That is better for the wood. It will take some time until the room inside will dry up.

Today, I fixed bugs found in the software I released yesterday. It looked excellent. It was the last day before my Yule holiday break. I had not realized that until late in the day.

In the evening, I started to feel something in my throat. Is it about to come now, the sickness that DW has been enduring? Why did my part of the sickness have to start when I had holidays? The blog this evening was at 2927 words this evening. I am lagging behind the goal of one thousand words per day.

Friday 20 December

This morning, I had a sore throat—just a little. I thought this was good cartoon material. That is about continuing to work while being sick, and now that I may get sick during my holiday.

I had decided to make this Friday a special day for the builders. I wanted to bring them french fries and try playing a DJ set in the barn.

There was no spectacular progress in the barn today. Little details were fixed. The inner walls of the canopy were mounted. Under the window, where the plumber will need access, they fastened the planks with screws. Brilliant! The broken hook stones under the pillar were replaced with one sturdy stone. There were a few planks to be put in place. They had to come back and put in a missing plank.

I made coffee for them as I did the whole week. During the morning break, I told them I wanted to test the sound quality of the barn. I don't think they fully embraced what plan I had for them. It was going to be very special. I brought out the DJ gear to the barn. Then, I played a set for them. I did it until a neighbor complained about the sound. That was well into an hour of techno music and some classics. The younger builder liked it a lot. I think the older builder was not that impressed. Perhaps.

The younger builder sent me the films he had made, and I decided to edit them into a film I could send via WhatsApp. For that, it had to be less than 64 Mb in filesize. I matched the tunes I played with the music and added stills. I made two versions. In the first version, I only included the progress of assembling the barn this week. In the second version, I included the progress made from the survey until today. Here is the second version.

The digger girl a week ago said they always order something more fancy on Fridays, like french fries. I noticed this happened at some other building sites as well. Even if it is not an evident tradition, I thought we had something to celebrate; the guys had been working hard this week. I ordered French fries from a restaurant in the neighborhood. The older builder recalled building a barn where a french fries trailer would come on Fridays not far from our house. In July 2021, the trailer was still next to the barn he had built. Two hens walked around trying to pick fries that had got lost. We had been standing at the barn waiting for our food and admiring it. Later that year, the french fries trailer was booted from that place. Now, they have a restaurant near a large grocery store of German origin that does not sell palm-free or biological products. The coziness of selling handmade french fries is gone. The fries still taste good, but you do not see a person make them anymore. That is happening in a kitchen. It was delicious, and the builders liked the initiative a lot.

The builders worked hard until the very last moment. They had to leave a little earlier because they had to do maintenance at another building in the neighborhood.

I started editing the movie and had the first version ready in the evening.

Saturday 21 December

This morning, my throat was more sore than yesterday. I had slept well, so that was nice. Luckily, we did not have that much on the agenda. I was so grateful that the building work had run so smoothly. This feeling stayed with me the whole day.

The most important thing we had to do was to get more hay for our three ladies. They had an annoying week. It was incredibly unpleasant to see people laying roofs. Somehow, people walking on roofs in the neighborhood is terrifying for them.

We went to the farmer in the neighborhood where we usually get the hay. His farm is not far from the machine rental shop. We got 12 bales of hay. Those fit nicely in our little hay shed made of pallets. That is a shed, and it will stay so.

We want to store the bales in the stable in the future, but I foresee that building it will take some time. That does not matter because we have this temporary shed. The main priority right now will be to get the barn in good order and get rid of the sea container. It will not be a quick operation.

It started raining, and it was a continuous rain. Having the rainwater connected to our water storage pool will be great.

In the evening, we set up the Yule tree. It is an old tree. I recall we fetched it from the garden center by bus. We took it home with a regular city bus because we had no car. I tried to figure out when we bought our first car, but I don't know nor feel like diving into the folders. Not tonight. I think we bought our first car in 1998. That would make the Yule tree from 1997. In that case, the tree is 27 years old. Why is it important? An old plastic Yule tree reused for 27 or 28 years has earned back its carbon footprint, especially if we keep it as long as we live. Perhaps getting the tree by bus was also a good way to keep a low footprint. I am fully aware that no one cares—altogether, no person. There are one or two sorts of palm-free margarine products in a good grocery store, but there are hundreds or thousands of sorts of cookies and other products in the same store with large quantities of palm oil. Humanity does not care about the earth; it is just a fact.

Little side note: This was the day I had planned to go to an art museum. My idea was that because I had the first real Yule holiday in many years, we would go and do something fun together. What did we do? We fetched hay.

Sunday 22 December

This Sunday, we had no plans. That is rather exciting! There are things to do, so it is not that we are sitting and making music with the DAW, writing lyrics for a song, playing around with Suno.ai, attending a course in electronics, painting a portrait, or practicing welding—no such procrastination. We did not even go to a museum of impressionists as I suggested several months ago for this weekend. Well, DW was not feeling well, so that was no good option, and I was still wondering if my cold was getting worse or if it would stay in a mild form.

So, what do you do under such circumstances? You dig in the sand, of course! That was my task; DW made an inventory of what ingredients she needed to buy to make soap, and she also worked on wool. Merida slept, and the sheep regurgitated, chewing their cud. DS made an application letter to search for a new job. As the saying goes in the Netherlands: we were all "good" busy.

Before the barn floor is created, we want to make the proper connections for sewer, water, data, and electricity. We already put the sewer pipe in below the foundation. We need to dig a hole to connect the sewer to various endpoints. I began with the sewer pipe. Earlier, I had made marks on the foundation to indicate where the sewer pipe was lying. Now, I recreated the line in the sand. Sand is suitable for making lines.

I started with the sewer pipe in the canopy. It is supposed to connect to a workbench at the east wall of the canopy. At that point, we also had a coupling between two pipes, and I would like the workbench part to connect to the main pipe. On the first attempt, I reached a little beside the coupling, so I had to move the hole. You know how to move holes, do you? Well, you pick up the hole and shuffle it a little to the side until the coupling is precisely in the middle of the hole. It is that simple.

Then, I made a trench to the future workbench at the east wall. Is the hole big enough for the couplings that Mr Radi is using?

I continued with the sewer for the WC bowl in the hall. There will be a restroom next to the door to the canopy. It will be the only heated room in the barn. All the rest of the barn will be unheated, although we will isolate the barn. With this layout, it is necessary to let the waterpipes stay underground and frost-free until they reach the endpoint. We will install heating in the restroom, keeping the room at a minimum of 15 degrees Celsius all year round. That will keep all pipes coming up from under the floor defrosted. The first thing I wanted to know was where the restroom would be. It is easy to make lines in the sand.

I started digging out the sand under the restroom. Somewhere was the sewer pipe. I had a mark on the concrete, so it was not so that I had to search for it. I decided to keep the shape of the restroom for the hole I made to get to the sewer pipe. That way, it will be possible to understand where things need to be when it is time to assemble pipes. Somehow, the layer of sand was not as deep here as in the canopy. I made the sewer pipe free so that Mr Radi could connect a coupling to that pipe. Then, I wanted to bring the water pipe to the restroom. We had not put it into the water pipe there, so I had to dig a trench along the foundation until I found it.

All right, now the restroom has electricity, a water pipe, and a sewer. The workbench in the canopy still had to get the water. Should we bring in a water pipe from the restroom? Well, that is possible, but then I would like to have it go under the frost-free part of the foundation. That would be a really tough challenge. I realized that the water pipe also passed the canopy part of the foundation. I just had to find it. This was more tricky because I had not made any stripes on the foundation. I missed the waterpipe grossly. I dug down and did not find the pipe. Then, I dug to the east along the foundation. Still no waterpipe. Then, I switched direction and started to dig to the west. Eventually, I found the water pipe. Nice! Now, I could make an opening around the waterpipe that Mr Radi can use to connect the workbench to the water. I made the trench deeper. All my digging will need to be approved by Mr Radi, but I think I am good at this plan.

Here, I ended my activities with the barn for this week. It had become completely dark. It cannot be so that I am sick if I can dig like this in the sand. Perhaps my cold will get worse; that is possible. For now, I am feeling okay with a bit of sneezing and coughing.

This is the end of this week's blog. We got a barn, and I can almost not believe it is true. I wrote 5084 words this week. It is a little less than 7k, but good enough.