Renovating !

6:16 AM bench seats, chainsaw, fireplace repairs 1 Comment

Chainsaw

Originally we had one "middle powered" saw but as anyone with a property knows, eventually you discover you need a large saw and a small saw.  We managed to find a great bargain on Gumtree for a large petrol powered saw in immaculate condition and when doing some research for a small saw we decided to go with the cordless Stihl MSA 200.  Being on solar, the energy for this smaller one is essentially "free" from the sun. There's no pollution or carbon emissions as from two stroke engine (which are incredibly polluting).  The gotcha was, with all cordless equipment the upfront cost of the battery but essentially you're paying all your fuel up front.  It's very quiet, no muffs necessary, only needs bar oil and cut through this tree easily.  Two thumbs up for everything aside from cost.

Renovating the Bench Seats

We had two old bench seats, both were unusable but the metal ends were in good condition.  One was aluminium, and one was cast iron!   We finally decided to renovate them to make them useable and Wow! have they come up beautifully.

old bench seat

ripping the wood (river redgum) to length

sanding

oiling

finished and in place

Renovating Fireplace

The drum acted as an expansion chamber providing heating in the bedroom but it has seen better days (you can see the rust holes in the base below) so we decided it was time to replace it.

Old Drum, looking worse for wear

 we managed to find a used 60l oil drum on Gumtree for $10 and got to work...

Repurposed Oil Drum, holes cut and sanded

... and painted

Fixing the flue