Tuesday 3 July 2012

yurt building for dummies

we have only gone and done it...

weds 27th june - we set off early to collect the van. the plan, to buy the wood we needed and drop it off on site. papajoe would then head into london to collect the yurt on thursday morning ready for a mad day of floor and yurt building. an easy start? well, first the yurt people rang to say they were away and we couldn't collect till friday then we had a serious maths debacle. papajoe underestimating and me over. i had a miny meltdown (see previous post).

thurs 28th june - uncle piers was late. he slept in and missed his train so we arrived on site (with just us) late. we marked out a circle with string and sticks and then, as all maths skills had deserted us, spent most of the morning lying planks on the floor to correctly work out how many we would need. we were later joined by mrs cleary, one of her lovely boys and finally uncle piers. we picked up all our wood laid our tarp and starting setting out the struts for the base of our deck. by half seven the kids the clearys and i had had enough and we left the boys to start screwing down the first few planks.

fri 29th june - papajoe picked up yurt! he arrived on site at 2 o'clock and since i had been on my own with the kids had not done any more than unwrapping the beginnings of our floor. we began work.. when (wait for it..) my mums boyfriends sisters boyfriend showed up to offer a hand. what a star! we were almost finished when we ran out of battery power for our one drill and one screwdriver (yes we were very prepared!) and so wrapped everything back up and called it a day. 



sat 30th june - determined to set of early we picked uncle piers up at 9 made a quick stop at the diy shop and headed back to site.. today was going to be easy! just a few more screws and onto putting up a yurt. whoops spoke to soon.. the floor was done but turns out we cut it pretty fine. we had a nightmare trying to fit the door and getting all the wall sections the same height. mum came and took some pics and chased the kids around till i couldn't keep my eyes open any longer and she ferried us home. again we left the boys to it but it was late and getting dark, they managed to get her up and get a waterproof cover over her before rushing back to ipswich to miss uncle piers' train. 


sun 1st july - moving in day.. or not. we were exhausted right from the word go so we decided we would take down the waterproof cover and add the proper layers, cotton, then felt, then canvas and plastic, then more canvas and a pvc rain cap, and get back to ipswich for an early night. the wind and the weight of the material held us up and if it wasn't for the help of a man named tim i don't know where we would be. but we did it. she was up, she was dressed and as much as we wanted to stay the night it was good to go back to mums. we had a takeaway and a bottle of fizz and collapsed into unconsciousness. 



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