The home straight

Even allowing for the bogus posting dates (to get the posts to follow a narrative order rather than the time they were actually written), it has been a long while I posted on this blog, mainly because we entered a hiatus in getting a carpenter organised to build some new steps which had become a trifle rotten.  However he has arrived early this morning (5 June), filling the drive with utes.  Here is the scene at about 8:30.













And here is the situation at 1630 on the same day.

The wood used is the usual 'treated pine' which has pretty much taken over from Oregon as the construction timber of choice.  It appears that about 20 years ago everyne thought that Oregon was the deluxe timber to use.  It was subsequently discovered that it is also the substrate of choice for most fungi in Australia, and as a result is now strang verboten for external use.  There was quite a bit of sawdust left over and I was thinking of putting it in my worm farm: fortunately I rethought this as a species that chucks a wobbly over bits of onion would probably not greatly enjoy the hetting this added to their diet.

I spent a good bit of 6 June applying the first coat of paint .  The drying time at 13 degrees C will be a bit different to our other painting efforts when it was more like 33 degrees C!   As I was getting close to finishing a few drops of moisture were evident, but fortunately it didn't and still doesn't, look like rain.

On 7 June a second coat of paint was applied and the following two images of the rather spiffy steps were taken.  This is declared to be the end of the project: anything else is maintenance.