Owning your own home

Yeah it’s massive. Will totally overpower the garden but I have a lot of bikes to store.

What sort of structure is it? I'm super paranoid about my bikes being in a wooden shed, are you going to alarm it or anything?

Yes I’m going to alarm it. Mains powered alarm, alerts my phone.

Behind me is an old people’s home with a coded gate and only pedestrian access. I’m mid-terrace so you’d have to go through a lot to get to my garden. And then you need to break in, and then it’s alarmed and then you’d have to get the bikes back out though all the gardens again.

It’s made of wood so theoretically you can cut through the wall more easily than trying to break a lock on the door but it’s situation makes it pretty safe IMO.

I’m still a bit paranoid tbh.

worth putting a ground anchor into the concrete and then laying the floor over it with an opening when you build the shed?

ground anchor and a 4 meter chain?

Yes I’m going to alarm it. Mains powered alarm, alerts my phone.

Need something like this in our shed. What are you going for?

One of those 3G workshop alarms with PIR and wireless sirens

Sounds more than enough given your house position, most thefts are opportunistic so position + alarm should be fine i expect.

Connected to the mains as a just in case?

Went out to check how hard the base is. Lots of like critter prints in it. 🦊 and 🐱

Adds to the character

Look at all the character

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It's good that you're covering up that brick wall

Those two separate brick walls

Are you gonna at least repoint the wall before the shed goes in? The wall doesn't look in brilliant condition.

That’s quite a lot of critters

It’s not my wall. That boundary wall is owned by Lambeth council.

If the wall has split in two that would suggest it has pretty bad structural problems (stating the obvious). Id be getting onto them about it..

I can't see any broken bricks across the gap, (even at 500% Zoom in Firefox).
It may well be a day joint or an expansion joint.
Properly specified brickwork has functional joints to allow for thermal expansion. Have a look on the other side to see it either bit of wall starts/ends in a pillar/parapet for additional stability.
Is it the photo, or does the wall change angle at the joint?

It’s two walls. They meet at my border. The road curves around and so do the rear gardens. If the tree wasn’t there I’d have a straight line. Further complicated by the tree that has grown a root through the gap between walls and is pushing them apart. I cut the root back in the summer.

Council are on it but not in a hurry. I think the tree has to come down. Which is a shame and I’m hoping to avoid.

Why are people concerned about it? It’s not going to fall down and I’m not going to see it.

Chapter 43 of cleaning a house the previous owners barely touched in 30 years. Had been umming and ahhing over what to do with the first floor bathroom, decided to keep it as is for the time being, paint over the weird purple and add some storage. Spent the last two days properly cleaning it. Fuck me it was worse than I even thought. Again, stuff I though was cream coloured was actually white. The shower screen is not actually frosted glass, which I was convinced it was given how uniform the limescale and soap scum was. About 8 hours, copious CIF and white vinegar, a few scrubby sponges later and it's not too bad.

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If anyone has some of the same kind of build up on tiles or glass, a slurry of CIF and vinegar works a treat with a green scrubby dish sponge.

If it's any consolation this weekend was the one where I finally removed and destroyed the last of the 'gifts' our sellers left us, including but not limited to four paddling pools in various states of decay and frog infestation, boxes of wrecked waterlogged books, broken gardening devices and the brambles, oh god the brambles.

On the plus side I finally got to explore the weird rear access path to the garden between the park and our shed and it will definitely accommodate the widest of bars. Just need to put some kind of portal in the shed to use it.

From the gardening thread. I feel your pain. Half of my garden is brambles. The rest is grass and ivy. I found a concrete slab pathway I didn't know about today! The consolation for me is that we wouldn't have been able to afford this place if the sellers hadn't been so generous with their gifts.

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