2020-09 Building a Wood Store

We had been living in our new home in Sweden for about three months, after emigrating from a city in the UK. I was worried about what the house would be like in winter because we had no experience with the heating system or a Swedish winter. I wasn’t familiar with the local shops and COVID was still a big issue in visiting places, so I ordered a wood store online.

Firewood Storage

The pair of firewood shelters arrived and I built them on the lawn in the sun. I had to rebuild one after I got an initial piece back-to-front but otherwise, they went together fine. But, I needed a good base to put the wood store on. I was on a tight budget this month and didn’t want to lay a permanent concrete foundation. Instead, I aimed for a paving slab area that would be “good enough” for this year.

I spoke to the local hardware shop and got paving slabs delivered. Using a plastic sheet as the underlay, I put down sand and then laid the paving slabs on top to create a flat pad area. I then purchased some firewood from my neighbour. As former city dwellers, we found it quite exciting when a tractor turned up to drop off the wood.

This was also when we also got to meet the neighbour for the first time. I was a bit nervous. In England, some neighbours fight for years over tiny boundary disputes. It was important to me that we have a happy neighbour. We discussed the gardening work that I had been doing. I checked he was happy with where we had planted some apple trees near the border and said we could move them. But it all went fine.

Garage Painting

This month I started painting the back of the garage. The wood faces the sun here and was very dry and unpainted. When he gave me the keys to the house, the previous owner had told me he hated painting. As a result, he had painted the front and sides of the garage that faced the road, but not the back. I also dug up all the plants around the base of the garage to reduce the risk of rot of the wood near ground level.

The woodwork soaked up the paint like an endless sponge when trying to make a primed surface. The wood was hardened and aged. In hindsight, it might have been cheaper to have replaced the vertical wood siding. I didn’t know how much paint it would absorb at the time.

Basement Floor Painting

I also started painting the basement floor to keep the concrete dust down. The washing machine was in the basement so we went down there frequently. But it was quite dark and the floor surface was dusty so we had to put on shoes when going into the basement. By putting a layer of paint down it held the surface together and reduced the dust.

A Table to Sit At

We had enough budget this month to get another IKEA order delivered. When you have an empty house, finally getting a table and chairs to sit down and eat food and drink tea is such a big relief. Before the table, we’d been sitting on the wooden decking steps outside. An actual table to eat at was great.

Curtains

We didn’t have curtains or curtain rails yet. One day a bird flew a window pane. It must have thought it could fly through. I opened the window just as it was dying on the grass, which was a bit of a shame. By the time I went outside with a shovel, a cat had eaten most of the bird. The garden looked like a murder scene. We decided to stick bubble-wrap in the middle of the windows as we had a lot spare from the moving boxes. We thought it might stop more bird deaths.

My task later this month was to mount curtain rails. Old houses are not always so level. I had to decide if the curtain rail should be fluid-level, or level to other building features. We also had difficulty trying to find window lights (fönster lampa). We got shades but the other parts did not fit.

Driving License

I had sent my UK driving license to be exchanged for a Swedish one. It had been a little worrying as the posting agent said the address for the transport agency was too short. It was the address on the website so I had to press ahead with sending it. I emailed the transport agency after two weeks to ask if they had received it, but got no response. I sent follow-up emails about once a fortnight at increasing intervals of despair. After 3 months with no response, I’d assumed it lost in the post when I got a response saying the approval was in the post as of two days ago. It was a great relief when I received the letter to visit the nearby city to have my photograph taken and collect it.

Summary

In hindsight, we didn’t need to worry so much about winter. We were balancing preparing for an unknown winter experience with staying within the budget for the month.