You'll see the construction of the motorcycle stable at this place:

The Stable

(Well, rather unstable, really. This is where you come in.)

Remedy

The Bike Stable was put up in a bit of a hurry last year, with pre-loved materials from a variety of sources. These included an old gridge down the loke; an outbuilding which was unmantled a few doors down the road; and some of the better parts of a friend's shed, which were holding up the main part...

There was the gable-end of an existing shed to act as a prop, and the construction was duly propped against it. The reasonably serviceable panels from the gridge down the loke were pressed into service, and where pressing wasn't quite enough, I have to admit to a certain amount of levering and some brutal hammering.

the roof beams from the outbuilding down the road were cut to size, but as they showed signs of being inhabited on a rather major scale, they were treated with liberal quantities of creosote. You may read the word 'they' how you like - either for the beams or for the inhabitants, both apply.

That got us to the stage where the firewood was beginning to resemble something less disposable, which is where the good bits of the friend's old shed came in handy.

The aforesaid good bits were some part-sheets of exterior plywood, and they seemed ideal for molishing the lid. A certain amount of filling was necessary, and a coating of waterproof wood treatment was applied until I could raise the price of a roll of felt. Finding one at a reasonable price at a well-known reclaimed materials yard nearby, I covered the roof with it.

It was a fairly elderly roll, and accordingly, was somewhat frail. Up came the wind. "I'll huff and I'll puff, and I'll blow your felt off!" it said. Or if it didn't, I was lied to as a child. Oh, as you were! That was the wooluf who said that, wasn't it?

Well, I replaced the felt, which wasn't too badly torn, and the wind Was Not Pleased.

So I had to put it back again.

Now, I have a roll of good, thick, strong felt, and a can of pitch with which to stick it down, and get you decorated with.

That leaves the inside. There are several jobs here. The first (probably) is to fix a batten to the brick wall (prop) and the side of the shed as it is now(ish). In fact, where the hole is, there is a bit of Twinwall polycarbonate, but you get the drift? when the batten is screwed to the wall, the end of the shed where it (almost) buts onto the brickwork can be persuaded to abut a bit more closely, and while it isn't resisting too enthusiastically, someone can whip a screw or two in.

Then there is the floor. The top (earth) layer needs to be excavated and rubble put in the resulting hole. There's plenty of rubble to come out of the chimneybreasts, so this job might not be quite so immediate. However, when the rubble is in place, and settled, it will require to have a skim of concrete put over the top.

I had considered digging a pit, for getting into and inspecting engines, etc., but when it rains, the water table is somewhere near an eighth of an inch - sorry, a couple of millimetres - beneath the floor level.

Several strengthening pieces of wood need to be fixed and the back door hung. Then comes the 'interesting' bit: finding a nice strong bit of shed, the trolley jack will lift it a bit - enough to get a damp-course in, and then lower it, and move to another bit to repeat the process. You've no need to tell me this isn't the usual order of doing things: I sussed that, but over the period the shed has been standing there the wind has walked it off the bricks it was standing on.

If you understand vectors and stress, you'll see that doing it the wrong way might result in a much firmer something-or-other, except for the wossname, which might be a bit you-know-what.

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