If the “moat” months felt slow, the next couple of weeks felt fast. Mick put up the blockwork walls (breeze blocks) in a matter of days. The space started to take shape and I could start to imagine what it might feel like inside.
Suddenly we were moving fast. Decisions that had seemed distant suddenly became urgent. Mick couldn’t build walls without knowing the size of the door and window, but I hadn’t contemplated them yet. The depth of the shelves would affect them too. As would the proportions of the roof. It was a mind-boggling rush to make decisions after all the delays.
Luckily my architect knew Jim, a great guy for fabricating the steels. The room is about 5m wide so we needed “picture frame” steels – that’s one in the ceiling, one in the floor and uprights in both walls. I tried several recommended suppliers but Jim gave me the best quote and seemed nicest too.
So we propped up the back of the house with acrows (big metal sticks) and bravely knocked out the back wall, while Jim made the steels.
When it came to installing them, he was outstanding. It sounded like a magic trick – you need to fit the steels but surely you have to remove the acrows to get them in. Jim promised me that there was a clever way to do it, told me not to lose any sleep over it. And lo and behold, he made this scary process look easy. The steels were in, the space was open, the building inspector was happy, it was all coming together.
