Garage floor, Water ingress

 Last winter was very wet and as a consequence an existing crack in the garage floor went from looking a little damp previously to a steady trickle of water.

The garage is what is know here as a "sous sol". Effectively 75% of it is underground, a type of construction that is no longer allowed in this area.

A rising water table was diagnosed as the cause. Water pressure rising up and forcing a failure of the slab floor. The solution was to add drainage.

Once the concrete has dried the floor will be resealed as will the lower section of all the outside walls.

Claire's Bed

 Just to prove the first one was not a fluke I repeated the trick with Claire's bed.

Emma’s Bed

Can you spot the difference?

Before

And after

New headboard, new foot rail, sprung beech bed slats and a mattress with her name on it.

 

 

 

The 2'6" bed is now 3". I just have to do the same with Claire's now.

 

Asian Hornets

 Within 36 hours of phoning the town hall the exterminator arrived. 

Tap on the image and you should see a larger version. The nest is just above the end of his pole. He sprayed it with a natural insecticide derived, I think , from the geranium plant. 

And a close up of the nest.

Filling up the raised bed

 Start with some old logs and bark

Add some well rotted grass clippings

Then the remains of the runner bean plants and the contents of the troughs they grew in.

 

Hoping for some rain now to settle that lot down a bit.

I have some more compost to go on top which the courgettes are currently growing in.

Raised bed in final position. A weed suppressing mat was laid underneath and around the outside and pine needles saved from the pine tree before it was felled were spread on top.

 

Those Douglas Fir and Black Pine logs were cut by a local sawmill for €65 euros. The spruce was not planked as was not wide enough

Stacked up outside the barn.

I had to buy a draw knife from ebay to help with the bark stripping. This would have been a doddle when the wood was freshly cut but after just a few months the bark is dry and stuck like glue.

The joints are called half dovetail notches and with the help of this template were not too difficult to cut. Although extreme care when marking and measuring was required. Working with live edge boards made life difficult as there was no uniform width but the finished affect was worth the aggro.

 

All the joints were cut by hand outdoors as at 2.2 metres the boards were too long for the workshop. A folding Japanese kabata saw was a doddle to use for both cross cut and rip cuts. A folding saw helped to protect the fragile but very sharp teeth while not in use.

The top boards needed one uniform square bottom edge and the top boards a slightly angled uniform top edge to do this meant taking the bandsaw outside.

The finished raised bed is at a height that should make it easy for Claire to use it without having to bend or kneel. I will line the sides with a waterproof material leaving the ends open for drainage probably with some added wire mesh to stop the soil falling out. And moisture trapped between the waterproof material and the boards should escape through the gaps between the boards.