Gate Building

Gate Building




Over the last few weeks, we have been building a replacement gate: The old gate was a bit rotten!




Last year we built three new shutters for the "salon" downstairs, we had bought some wood which was too thin, so we did not use it.




I came up with the idea of using most of this wood with a frame to make a new gate, and thought that it would be a good project for my nephew and I to do, since we had worked well together last year.




The idea was to build a frame, screw the wooden slats to one side, and have diagonal "Z" 's inside. It was taking a while to do, everyone was telling us to hurry up and so on!!
We decided to scrap the diagonals, since it was going to take AGES to do, and it was going to be strong enough without! That saved us at least an extra day!




This is it, with just one slat to put on, and the second side will be complete; sandwiching the frame on the inside.
My nephew wrote a "message" on the inside, for ... Posterity? ... He wrote: "Uncle Roland smells!" and the date! I added: "No I don't!"




We saved all the metal-work from the old gate, painted it with anti-rust paint. (I think it was lead based, but never mind!)
We fixed it all temporarily to see if it all fitted, and measured/marked where the latch could go.
It actually looks quite good with the bear wood, and dark grey hinges!




View from the "inside" taken from my bedroom.




All assembled and two coats of grey paint!




Final assembly, all painted!
:-)))




As I mentioned before, we had built three shutters last year, but ran out of paint for the last one, so I managed to find some old jars of leftovers and stretched the paint out... Hoping that I would get some more paint this year and finish off the job.
However, when I was putting everything away on the last day, I nearly kicked some big pots which were on the floor, and discovered that they were grey paint for the gates! "Oh bother!" I thought! "If only I had spotted those before!" or other slightly more colourful words!




So this year, while I painted the new gate, I gave the last two coats to the shutters... It was a completely different colour! But from afar, it is all "grey"...




Here are the last two shutters in place. It was debatable whether they needed the "Z" 's, but the last ones needed some extra support to stop the slats sliding against eachother and drooping!
That will be a problem for the next generation I hope!
:-)))