Dig, dig, dig

The site for the shed was levelled after the driveway was put in and looked like this:

View to the south east

View to the north east

The mound of dirt to the south of the cutting is the topsoil that has been set aside to use at a later stage.  The plan is to use that soil to create raised vegetable gardens to grow our own produce.

In an effort to save money, we decided to dig the footings by hand.  I do not recommend this.  To anyone.  Unless you have the contestants from "Biggest Loser" coming to do a challenge and dig the footings for you, perhaps.  The task of digging the footings by hand was made even more challenging by the fact that we were mostly digging into bedrock. 

We had a tricky time working out how to mark the site to cut the footings as we didn't have a laser sight.  So, we reverted to the old school technique of string lines.

Calculating is not my forte so I leave it to the mathematician

The string lines started out pink and by the time we finished digging they were bleached white by the sun and tied back together a million times after being pulled apart by Willie the wombat

 You can see in the photo above that we had to use spray paint in an attempt to make sure that the footings were straight as the wind at the block can be unrelenting and led to the string lines blowing about 50mm to the east of where they were meant to be.  We had to re-tighten the string lines each morning to get them to be where they were meant to be.  The only problem with the spray paint was that the dirt would fall away in clumps and the line would be lost.  In the end we ditched the spray paint and learned to get our eye in to account for the wind and ensure that the footings were correctly placed.

We raised the string lines off the ground to reduce the number of times the string was cut when the footings were being dug.  Luckily my husband is a deft hand at tying knots! Note: this became a repeating trend, where I would try to help and my poor husband would end up correcting my mistakes.

It might not look like much but setting up the strings took us about 2 weeks.  There was a surprising amount of maths involved in making sure the corners were at right angles and that the lines were oriented north-south and east-west.  The compass skills learned at uni came in surprisingly handy!

At the time, I was working from home on a full time basis so I would get up early in the morning and work from 0500 to about 0900 when the family had finished breakfast.  We'd then head to the block to work there and once the kids were in bed at night I would work again. 

The great dig begins

We learned pretty quickly how important it was to wear protective eye wear.  It is amazing how those small shards of rock flew through the air and would land with such precision in our eyes!

The kids spent a lot of time digging too

It was pretty tough going for our unconditioned office bodies (my hubby retired from work in 2006) so I managed to perfect my shire council pose:

Little Miss loved to walk up and down the trenches and we spent a lot of time trying to explain how dangerous it was for her to walk along behind us.

Our efforts were hampered by exceptionally dry conditions.  Oh, and bedrock:

 The kids managed to entertain themselves as best they could while we dug.  Our Padawan managed to master the iPod and they played endless games in the car as there was no other shelter from the wind.

Amazing how imaginative the kids were (and still are) while we work at the block

Stickers and music - what more could two kids ask for?

The original plan was to build a shed which we would live in while we built the house then convert the shed to a workshop for blacksmithing and a garage/storage.  Life, however, does not always go according to plan.  In mid 2009, I fell ill with an undiagnosed virus which led to shingles and a week in the Epworth followed by 12 months of recovery.

We did, however, finally manage to finish the footings in February 2010:

Triumph feels like this

Our first family photo in our 'shouse'