A funny thing happened the other day... I finished the cubby saga

Good evening all and a happy new year to you.

I thought I'd start the new year off by posting the conclusion to my cubby house saga that I spoke of a couple of months ago - I have finally downloaded some pics so they will tell the story also. I will try not to waffle too much :) There are 16 piccies so I will do it over 4 posts - bear with me my two fingers don't type all that fast :B

Pic 1 - After an incident free drive home - with a 2.4 x 2.4 metre cubby on an 8 x 6 trailer, and a 2.4 x 2.4 x 800 stand on the roof of the van :oo: we unloaded and I made the discovery that the cubby would not actually fit from front yard to back yard :doh:

Pic 2 - After trying a few different ideas and counting to 10 a number of times to stop things really going down hill fast, it was determined that cutting the sucker would be the best solution.
Once I got over the initial reluctance to cut open my newly acquired $700 cubby, it wasn't all that bad - marked the roof out, screwed down a guide and cranked up the circular saw (boy that can make you feel better, nothing like a bit of carnage to calm those feelings of self annoyance :D ). Marked out the sides and was going the circ saw again but was a bit awkward so hand cut them. Screwed some timber over the cut to hold it all together and did the floor.

Pic 3 - Here is the intended recipient making daddy proud by playing in her new cubby even when its in a couple of pieces. Dragged it down the drive, then got a couple of mates to help me through the garage and into the back yard.

Pic 4 - A couple of weeks went by, so fast forward to the week before chrissy and now the rubber is hitting the road, I have some major things to accomplish and 6 days to do it - lucky for hols.
This is the stand, I cut and shut this too and now we had to decide where to put the cubby in the back yard. We had also purchased a trampoline for christmas so had to work out where everything was being placed. This took a while and in the end we ditched the stand for a completely different idea.

To be continued.....

Pic 5 - It was decided that we would hang the cubby half over our retainer wall, thus being next to the sand pit (which I will now build a lean to off the cubby to protect it from the elements). It did however mean sacrificing an old stone chimney that used to be home to an old fashioned BBQ. BBQ has been gone 20 odd years but I have kept the chimney as it looked so good..... progress eh

Pic 6 - Marking out for the garden and trampoline to the left of the sand pit - cubby is on the right of sand pit

Pic 7 - Earth retainer built and marking out for tramp complete, also garden marking out completed.

Pic 8 - Footings for cubby dug and ready for concrete, chimney sacrificed :C

To be continued....

Pic 9 - After 4 hours of digging up grass, the sight is now ready for airating (crowbars at 10 paces), I dug in the border as well using bricks from our old open fireplace.

Pic 10 - To put the cubby back together, I used 90 x 20 pine for the sides screwed either side of the cut. For the roof I used 45 x 45 screwed to the rafter next to the cut and then I screwed the roof down onto that. For the floor I tipped the house on its side and used 90 x 35 spanning 1200 attached to the 5 bearers that I had cut through using some type 17's.

Had 4 mates come over to help position the cubby over the footings. Had some interesting times when we had to drop down over the retainer, but all went pretty smoothly. Concreted the corner post in and started on the other 2 middle posts. But after working for about 11 hours on this day the posts were not working for me so before I made a stupid mistake with the drop saw I called it a day - hence the middle 2 posts looking skewed.

Pic 11 - Again my little helper helping with the garden mix.

Pic 12 - Garden mix down and plants roughly positioned.

To be continued....

Pic 13 - Planting now done and I have nearly finished moving the 3 cubic metres of mulch and 1 cubic of soil from front to back - after this day (chrissy eve) my back is none too happy with me. 3 of the 4 posts for the cubby are in, screwed to the fllor and dynabolted into the concrete pad - the back post is still to be done I miscalculated the dimensions and ran into the bottom of the stone chimney, so will have to do some deft cutting into the sandstone on the weekend to get the 4th post to fit

Pic 14 - Cubby in place with slide as viewed from top level of our yard

Pic 15 - Its now about 9.30 chrissy eve, raining, and I don't know which way is up for this damn trampoline net!! The tramp could not be started until our little one was tucked away in bed so I new it was to be a late night - the first of many I am sure (it was kind of exciting though doing the whole late night chrissy eve thing - felt like the dad thing you know) Tramp went together like a breeze, maybe an hour doing it alone, the net however was another story. Very time consuming, finished about 12am - still not althogether a late end to the evening (coming down from nearly 17 hrs straight yard work however took quite a while)

Pic 16 - The finished product as taked christmas morning just before we let Trinity loose :D

I am pretty happy with the way things turned out, but more importantly our daughter was stoked and so was my wife - can't really beat that.

We are going to sand the cubby back and paint it - bought the paint yeasterday and will get onto it in a couple of weeks. Also thinking of reroofing, the roof is supposed to be exterior grade ply, but the fact that in many places I can nearly put my fingers through it tells me otherwise.

I tell you by the time it is over its going to be worth more than the house!!!!

Thanks for sharing in the journey with me. CU.

Good stuff. So, is the next job building the furniture? :D

Shannon

Excellent outcome buddy. Glad everything is on the up and the little one loved it all, after all it is the little ones we try and make happy for if they are then the rest of the family falls in line as well. Nice amount of brownie points gained with the wife too by the sound of it.

Have a greenie for all the effort you have put in to make this a truely great Christmas for the littlun'.

Pete

Good job, and a good save on the "Whoops, can't get the cubby in the backyard" issue :D

Congratulations Shannon! Superb work on the cubby, but especially on the net for the trampoline :)

cheers
Wendy

Looks like a good play area, nice ending to the initial drama

Well done Shannon!

Thanks all for the kind words - it has been used as much as possible since chrissy, the weather has not really been our friend as far as jumping is concerned, but we would MUCH prefer the rain right now anyway - if only we had a rainwater tank!!!!