Claygate - Potting Shed
Claygate - Bespoke Potting Shed
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Back in April I got a call from a lady who had an idea of what she wanted her new Potting Shed to look like. The main feature was Sweet Chestnut logs and Lime Based Mortar as a kind of grout on the lower half of the walls, with Larch Waney Edge from the bottom of the windows up. She didn’t want to loose space inside so the Chestnut logs needed to be as thinner panels to look like longer logs. Iv never done this type of exterior before as I explained but as some of you may know, I love a challenge and I said we would give it a go! We sourced some trees from a friends woodland and started cutting them into 3 inch blocks and experimenting using different methods and lime mixtures. |
The samples were not really going to plan and after at least ten samples, three of them seemed to be going relatively well.
However, the summer heat and shrinkage of the logs as they dried out caused some to fall off. On the flip side, when it rained and they got wet they expanded and started to crack the mortar which made the blocks loose.
Putting my “defeated” hands up, the customer decided to go down the safe route so we stuck to what we knew and cladded all the walls in larch boards.
At the end of the build Kitty was over the moon with her Potting Shed even though we had to go to plan B.
I must admit, it does look lovely.
However, the summer heat and shrinkage of the logs as they dried out caused some to fall off. On the flip side, when it rained and they got wet they expanded and started to crack the mortar which made the blocks loose.
Putting my “defeated” hands up, the customer decided to go down the safe route so we stuck to what we knew and cladded all the walls in larch boards.
At the end of the build Kitty was over the moon with her Potting Shed even though we had to go to plan B.
I must admit, it does look lovely.
Does anyone want to buy a shed load of seasoned Sweet Chestnut 3 inch logs?
