A new gem on the roof

Entering the last third of his gardening leave Markus got some inspiration from his youth: When he was a teenager and also as student he used to spend a few days during his summer holidays doing some DIY together with his granduncle Adolf - applying wooden wall panels, laying of paving stones or tearing down walls and redoing whole rooms. It was always hard work, but fun and great to see something new being created with one's own hands.

The lessons he learned many years ago now paid back when Markus decided spontaneously on Monday to tackle a long awaited project: a wooden floor on the terrace. During the morning he drew the sketches of the terrace with exact measures, calculated the necessary wooden beams for the substructure & the bars - we decided to go for larch rather than tropical wood like bangkirai - and In the afternoon of that rainy day he headed off towards one of his beloved stores - OBI - and took along Jakob, Kerstin and Heidi who wanted to pick some stuff up at Ikea next door. More than one hour later Markus left the store as large client (which meant that he got the VAT back!) and his three passengers a little bit shocked as Markus brought along a huge trolley full with the beams as well as screws and some other tools. The question that arose at this point was: One of the three passengers or half the beams? Not surprisingly the beams stayed back in the store and were picked up half an hour later. Tuesday morning Markus went back yet again to pick up the larch bars which have been cut to size in the meantime and spent the late afternoon transporting the wood upstairs onto the terrace. At night, when Jakob slept and Kerstin had her girl's night out - she is on the road a lot these days - Markus moved all plants and furniture from the terrace-to-be-transformed in order to be ready to kick off next day morning.

Wednesday late afternoon: If only all the bars would be fixed already

Monday morning the weather was glorious though chilly and thus perfect for construction works. The first hours were dedicated to building the substructure in order to make the job of fixing the bars onto it easy and smooth. As Jakob was quite keen to wander around the terrace and find out what's underneath the beams the job took a bit longer and so Markus could screw the first bar onto the beams early afternoon. The first few lanes were pretty difficult as they had to be properly straight but at the same time the substructure was still fairly loose. After the fourth lane everything was pretty stable but unfortunately Markus has killed already two drill bits and thus he was scared that he would soon have to stop soon if equipment keeps breaking at that pace. While Jakob liked the terrace with the substructure he was absolutely crazy about helping when the power drill or screw driller were in use. Markus had to regularly stop and let the junior "work" with some tools as otherwise the little one would have gone crazy and so by the evening ca. 1/6 of the terrace was done.

There was someone who helped Markus. Sometimes.

Thursday morning, Jakob's first way was all the way upstairs to the terrace where all the tools were parked and when Markus started working again he had to shut the doors and work as quietly as possible in order to not get too much of Jakob's attention. When Jakob and Kerstin left after lunch to visit Doris, the signs for Markus were all on "GO" and so he worked his way without further damage to any drill bits all over the terrace on his knees only making occasional breaks to drink something or to give the screw driller some time to get recharged. When Jakob and Kerstin came home at 1900 Markus was finished physically, has finished the flooring and fell into bed soon for a good sleep. Friday morning some detailed finishing work was done as well as moving plants and furniture back to the re-designed terrace and in the afternoon our new "lounge area" was open for business.

The result of some hard work.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus