A close shave

[nmg]

As mentioned in previous posts, we're putting up a shed this weekend. Believe it or not, this is actually on the critical path to getting the nursery sorted out before the garklet arrives (erect shed, move paint tins from library cupboard to shed, move computer into library cupboard, turn former computer room into nursery). The shed got delivered this afternoon, slightly later than I'd hoped, and I can now breath a huge sigh of relief.

You see, when we took down the previous shed, ias and I measured the plot and realised that we had enough space to fit a 7'x7' shed. I went ahead and ordered the shed from Screwfix.

A week later, I woke up in the middle of the night with the realisation that I hadn't measured the height of the passageway through which I'd need to move the shed panels in order to get them into the back garden. A passageway which has less than 7' of headroom at either end. I lay there tossing and turning for the four hours until dawn while trying to work out what I could do:

• There's limited space at the garden end of the passageway, so there's no guarantee that we'd be able to turn the panels to clear the garden gate if we moved them diagonally through the passageway.
• We're mid-terrace, so we'd have to heft the panels over at least two gardens if we were to try and get things in from either end.
• That aside, there's a wall at each end of the terrace with a doorway of the same dimensions as our passageway, so we'd have to lift it over that wall as well.
• It might be possible to take the panels apart, carry them through in bits and reassemble them, but the base is a single sheet which would need to be cut.
• Lifting the panels over fences and walls would take more people than we're likely to have around at the weekend.

We've been very, very lucky. The highest minimum dimension of the panels is 6'10". The diagonal in the road end of the passageway is 7', and there's just enough space to get round the gate at the other end. Moreover, the shed panels were light enough either for me to move by myself, or for ias and I to move between us (yes, I forced my wife to do heavy labour when almost eight months pregnant). The downside is that it's clearly a very cheap shed, but hopefully it'll last for a few years longer than the previous one was going to.

Comments

[ias.livejournal.com]

That'll be 'forced' in the sense that you didn't refuse my repeated offers to help.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

Shhh! How am I to retain my reputation as a callous brute if you keep giving the game away?

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

Hooray for diagonals! The other option you could've tried would be wrapping it in an old sheet or two and hauling it straight over the roof with a great long rope. Endless amusement for your neighbours if nothing else. (And handy source of employment for your favourite roofer too.)

Good luck with the rest of the sorting-out.

We had a long list of 'stuff to sort before baby arrives', and we managed to clear most of the major things. Just as well we did, because we have not managed to find time to do one single thing off the residual list in the two months since the birth ...

[nmg.livejournal.com]

I fear that's likely to be the case here as well. Thank god I don't have any teaching this semester!

In other news, we've started going to NCT antenatal classes, and have found them to be pretty good so far (there's a rant about moxibustion, but that should really be a separate post). Your observation about the attitudes of your peers in the classes has so far held for me as well.