Doghouse's Garden

I s’pose I’m looking for things to do before I tackle replacing the support posts for the big pergola across the back of the house. These are showing signs of rot, contrarily, one at the top, the other at the bottom.
They’re 4” x 4” thick, over twenty years old and only soft wood, but have lasted well due to them getting regular coats of Dulux Woodsheen. They’re OK for now, I’ll change them when the leaves fall from the wisterias.

I’ve bought and fitted another 35W 12V halogen lamp to backlight the pagoda like the one I fitted to illuminate the waterfall. It’ll look good I think, as it will also shine through our new black bamboo which has finally arrived.
It said in the catalogue it'd be three feet talI, it's actually over four feet tall, so I'm quite pleased. As Little Richard might say; "A whop bop - a - loo- lop, a big bam boo!" (I'm in one of those moods).

I’ve threaded the 12V supply to the new lamp and the other cable that supplies the two 12V lanterns through some plastic overflow water pipe clipped to the concrete post and bottom panel of the waneylap fence. The two transformers for these lights are in the roof of the tea-house.
I’ve also fitted some guttering and a downpipe for the back of the tea house to prevent the rainwater from the back of the roof continually running down the back fence and accelerating any rot. I've not put it on any of the other sides as it'd spoil the lines and the large over-hang keeps the water off the verandah.



I also need to remake the finial of the pagoda. It was tricky to make originally as such things are mostly unknown here so there's no "kit." I used a steel rod and the brass knobs off the old kitchen units which I drilled out when we had a new kitchen five years ago, together with some wooden curtain rings. These have dried out and are crumbling. It's also lost the sorin I made for the top with the two balls.



This is what it’s supposed to be a representation of, unbelievably complicated.



I bought some wooden curtain rings on Saturday and I've found that the tops of 2pt milk cartons a nice tight fit to fill the centres.I'll probably tackle re-making the finial next week-end.
I'll not have sufficient tops until then!



They need painting (or I could leave them as they are) and a central hole drilled and I've a new threaded steel rod to go through the middle.
The sorin presents a more difficult task as it will need a bit more time spent on making it.
I'm not sure yet how I will tackle that but it'll need to be quite resilient to stand up to the wind and rain.
I went into one of these cheap high street jewellery shops and found a scruffy white wooden bead necklace with varying sized beads which will be ideal for the top. I can drill two of them out and then screw them down on the rod into exactly the right positions.
When I went to pay for it, the assistant tried to sell me a pair of matching earings to go with it. I can only assume she thought I was cheap enough to buy some poor woman a £3.99 tatty wooden necklace as a present. I declined and she couldn't quite make out why I was smiling at her suggestion. She probably thought I was a tight old bu****!

But I mustn't get too obsessive about it, it's only s'posed to be a representation, few people will notice and those that do, won't know any difference..... just me!


Edit: 27/10/10

I've more or less, finished this now. I spent an hour or so on it this afternoon.


So it's a steel rod, the brown plastic top off my shaving gel can, wooden curtain rings, milk carton tops, drilled through brass cupboard door handles, the spare pommel from one of our Roman window blind cords, the cut down, re-shaped and drilled out plastic stake that came with one of the low voltage lamps, a miniature screwdriver blade and two wooden beads off a bling necklace.

Job done! Well nearly..Technically, there should be nine rings not seven, but I'll add the last two when the milk carton tops become available in a couple of days, just a five minute job.












Hmm..

The "wooden rings" were a disaster, they couldn't have been "wood" more likely MDF, as they distorted when they got wet.
Still, a rummage through the bottom drawers of the same fabric/knitting wool/ haberdashery shop produced some silver plastic ones.
I had the assistant seeing if plastic milk carton tops would fit in them, she must have thought I was completely mad!

Anyway, a "result" I'll get round to buying some silver enamel to finish off the green part at the top.
As I may have mentioned before, "You have to have it right" don't you?

The black "bam boo" is to the right and behind.

 

That is so cool!!