What happens when your DIY garden cabin project completely collapses with warped wood and extreme heat? My son and I tried to build the BillyOH Winchester cabin from Garden Buildings Direct to give him a teenager workspace, but twisted timber and rubbish floorboards left us with a structure that would not hold together.
After getting nowhere with customer support, we called in a local builder to save the project. I show how he fashioned a solid timber frame to fix the alignment so windows can finally fit, taking us one step closer to clearing the computers off our kitchen table... Here are some tips if you want a wooden garden office, pod or workshop.
THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
Just before I put the camera on, there was this clang - crash!
It happens... right, let's go back to the timelapse. Man.
So, end of day three and didn't think we'd get this far, but we got the window frames up. The we're on to some of the warped boards and they they were really bad. Um, this one is down in that end and just up in the air here because this one is so warped, but it's looking good. We're supposed to have done the floorboards, but because we don't have the technical details, uh, I haven't put those in yet. And actually, it's a lot easier putting the ladder on without wibbly wobbly floorboards.
It's the final rafter to go before the roof.
So, I'm showing this to my son for the first time. This is insane. Look at this.
This looks a lot better than whatever... we did. We did. Oh my god. He's like... "Oh wow." And the the window fits in here. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that amazing? This... when we put the one on the back. Yeah. Yeah. So, that was the roof. It was really... Oh my goodness. So, when I started this vlog, it was to try and capture things around the house. Observations as a dad. This is the start of a series of vlogs. I don't know how long I'm going to keep this going, but I'm going to try and capture something every day. And today I'm capturing this which a builder has built. It's... It looks like a tiny house. It's amazing. And all of it is to fix something that didn't work out so well. Look. So, we tried building this. It's from uh... it's called the BillyOH Winchester cabin. And it's... Yeah, it's meant to look like this. And in reality, it looks like this. Except it didn't look like this. We did, Joe and I, managed to get it all the way up to the roof. and we built the roof. We even got the flooring down. We just needed to get it to a point where someone who knew what they were doing could finish it off. And unfortunately, I think because of the materials, uh, it didn't work out because the walls that were straight when we put them up, but in the extreme heat, the walls have kind of now look like this. Let me go closer. The walls now look like this, and they just weren't holding at all. So, we couldn't get a window in. And I think it's peculiar to this this size of cabin because if you have a bigger cabin, you can have bigger walls here that hold the window. But all we had was just like a pile of pile of bits of these put on top of each other. They just didn't they didn't fit at all. We've paid for this with uh money from my dad who uh left us last year. So, we thought, you know, we treat treat ourselves and give my son somewhere to put his PCs, but this has been going on since uh since June. This has been going on for about two 2 and 1/2 months. The wood was twisted at the beginning. I'm not that fussy. It's okay. I know that wood is a natural product, but this stuff had like knots and big holes in it. the the floorboards weren't floor, they were holes and they didn't lock into each other. So, I tried contacting the company. Again, this isn't a grievance-based attention farming video. Uh, it's just our journey that I contacted the company and said, "Look, can you help us out?" Because these floorboards, they're really not. And they just sent back usual icy shrug of indifference. So, Garden Buildings Direct thought that these boards were good enough. I'd beg to differ because if you've got floorboards on the floor and you got big holes in, you're going to see underneath the shack and there's water under there possibly. Uh I just need proper floorboards and they they refused and I know I'm not experienced at this but it's been very disappointing. The BillyOH Winchester I... I wouldn't recommend it. So anyway, so now I called a local builder who couldn't believe how they were supposed to go together. So this afternoon he's fashioned this. It's like an Amish building, isn't it? It's like an Amish barn that we're going to raise. And it's also um I don't know. It's like one of those things from the the Black and White movies where I stand there and the whole thing can fall.
I'm so excited about this because it's a proper frame now that the that the window will fit. We we didn't have that with the BillyOH Winchester from Garden Buildings Direct. Yeah. So, this is this is what it should look like. And this is what it shouldn't look like. So, hopefully we'll have a place to put all of this.
One or two computers. We've not seen the kitchen table since November. It's about uh 10 months ago. We are days away from getting our kitchen table. All of that is to get the kitchen table. Can't wait. Casper, what do you think?
It is day two of rescuing our Garden Buildings Direct BillyOH Winchester log cabin. After the original walls warped wildly in the summer heat, our builder got to work fashioning a completely custom, square timber front to replace the wobbly original logs.
I show the dramatic difference between the twisted original wood and the new rock solid frame. With perfect joist cutouts and a structure strong enough to hold even me, we are finally ready for roof joists and cladding. Check out how a former film set builder is turning our DIY disaster into a proper garden room office pod thing.
THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
It's sunset on day two of trying to rescue our terrible garden buildings direct BillyOH Winchester cabin. It's actually BillyOH NO! Winchester cabin. Look at this. It's up. It's up. Let me spin the camera around. Ah, finally we have a front that's actually square. That doesn't warp in the sun. that doesn't have gaps in it. Well, it's obviously got big gaps, but they're for the window and doors, but they're true, so they're gonna fit. And just to show you how bad the walls twisted in the heat, look, this this will really show up on camera. So, we've had to overhang. Say we, our brilliant builder, uh, sorted this out. Look at this. Look how that wavy Davy line of the wall goes. That is how twisted it was. Um so it's almost like a feature now. Um it's like um it's character, isn't it? It's nice bit of character now instead of just gaping hole. Gaping holes for walls that weren't walls. Don't know how we're going to sort out the the floorboards, but yeah. Look at this. That is how badly twisted. Look. I mean, there's a blooming gap there. Um, awful. But anyway, the front is fantastic. And it turns out, uh, our build I'll run some footage of the of the frame going up. And it really was like that Buster Keaton thing where if it falls over, uh, you clear the door frame. But we we lifted it into position. He spent about well he he must have spent a day and a half designing and fashioning this front because it had to fit exactly the joists. Uh which I can show you now. Look the joists and they just fit perfectly in a way they did not do with the Garden Buildings Direct uh BillyOH Winchester. Uh they're all gaps and this was all wrong. It was just off. Um, it wasn't anything we had done. It just it's just not straight. So, now it's perfectly straight. And the the gaps for the joists for the roof to go on tomorrow. I think we're going to get a roof on tomorrow. It's lucky we've got uh a week of good weather. Another week of no rain. Let's go back to the footage of the uh the frame going up and we had to push it into place um pretty exactly. So he he actually put a like a doors stop actually screwed it in so that it would push against it. We knew it would be in exactly the right position. Go back to the footage. And what you probably can't see is that there's a line of silicone uh down the side as well. Obviously it'll be it's all going to be screwed in to place as well, but the front is absolutely perfect. And the windows are in exactly the right position and it's centered. Even though the walls are wavy davy all over the place walls, we know that this front is is is perfect. And so it's going to look so good. I think obviously it doesn't yet match the log cabin look of the the rest of the of the shack, but uh I think we're going to I think he's going to clad it with feeder edge boarding. I think it's going to look really good. But underneath it, it's insulated, it's solid, and it's square. It's perfectly square and perfectly straight in a way that it has never been. I mean, look, look, we I can show you now. This is how it came from Garden Buildings Direct. They just didn't these pieces, they just didn't they look straight, but when you put a pile of them uh in a row in a column, there's no way that that was going to be a perfect fit. It I mean just it just they just kind of teetered on the edge and the height of them didn't match the height of the boards on the right hand side. So, it's a bit difficult to explain, but you've basically got a pile of blocks like it's Jenga, and the windows and doors are going to slam against this this thing that wobbled, and that I can really push this. It's totally solid. I can hang off this. I tried hanging off the other one just to kind of try and bring the the boards together, but this is totally 100% solid now. Turns out the builder used to work on film sets. Um, it does look like a film set build when it went up. It was just so perfect for this garden and for what I do in this garden with the video making. Uh, so I love that little part of the story with it as well. And it looks great on the decking that our brother-in-law made as well. I'm just so happy with how it's coming together. We were so worried that it wasn't going to work. Also, I think the the look of the the cabin, it was the the best that we could find for what we could afford, but the um it just looks a bit twee... it looks a bit like a sort of, you know, Daily Mail supplement, garden furniture ad kind of design aesthetic to it. It's not offensive, but it there's just something a bit old about it. And what what's nice about what we're doing now is I think it's going to look a bit more I don't know what the word is. It's not rustic. It's going to look homemade in in a good way. So, that's the update on day two of rescuing our BillyOH Winchester cabin. Really pleased with how this is going to come together. It's it's obviously taking so much more work, but at least I know that work is being done properly. I'll try to keep updates coming on the channel. I'll put uh I'll put these in a playlist, I think. And that's on screen now. Also on screen is what YouTube knows you want to be watching next. Oh yes, it's going to stand.
Part 3 of rescuing our Garden Buildings Direct BillyOH Winchester log cabin, tackling the completely buckled roof and rubbish floorboards. The original summerhouse roof boards warped so badly in the summer heat wave that they pulled the walls apart, forcing our builder to make an entirely new plywood and felted roof frame.
With a cold brush-off from customer service to furious neighbour complaining about the noise, I'll see if we can get solid barge boards, new felt, and proper window frames for the garden pod office.
THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
This is the third update now of how we're trying to rescue our Garden Buildings Direct BillyOH Winchester log cabin or as we've dubbed it BillyOH NO! On the previous videos I explained how us putting the roof on actually made the front totally buckle in the heatwave and the warped boards the they were just so twisted that eventually the walls kind of twisted the front off. to the point where it was impossible to put the window frames in. We could put them in, but we couldn't attach them to anything. We got some help from a local builder who has managed to build an entirely new front for the log cabin. And turns out he's a a former set builder on film sets. So, we now have a garden cabin that's effectively a film set, which is what I wanted for this channel. And I think I showed this on the last video. over here. You can see how bad the walls warped in the heat cuz that is a straight line. And yeah, you can see just how wavy uh it is. Look, I mean, I put my finger in the gap between the the logs there. The next big thing was I didn't put it on camera. He he managed to build a roof as well. So, the roof boards were completely useless. They're completely buckled in the heat. They were too thin. I've got them under the tarpaulin in here. Don't know why I'm protecting them, but they completely buckled under the heat and that's what was tearing the front of the walls off. So, he's built this completely new frame at the top here with plywood and we've managed to Can I get the camera up there? We've got uh roofing felts and I I went out and bought some new roofing felts as well because I think the stuff we had was total crap. So, it it's watertight, which is great cuz we had a little bit of rain yesterday. We're in the middle of a heat wave, though. So, it's mainly the heat that we're protecting the uh the cabin from. I've got a big job today, and that is Well, it's not big. I've got to put down the floorboards that we took up. These ones on the top look good cuz I've selected them. Underneath there are all kinds of atrocities. We've got I can point one out right here. We've got like big holes in the floorboards from knots, but I've also the tongues on the tongue and groove disappear to nothing. So, the boards don't lock into each other. We I tried contacting Build Garden Buildings Direct and try to explain the situation and can you help me out with some extra floorboards? They said no. Um the knots are there for a reason. But on their videos, the the floorboards they use are of course completely pristine so that you can't see down through the floor into underneath the log cabin. That's the whole point of a floorboard. The first thing I need to do is to remove these three floorboards. And this looks like a really simple job, but it's taking a bit of bit of work to get this final floorboard out. But the reason I'm spending so much time on this is that I can't mess around with these floorboards. I've only got a very specific number that are any good and even that is short of the number of floorboards that I need. So I need to get this out really carefully because I don't want any more damaged floorboards.
The next job is to sort out the floorboards that we've got. I've got this system going where I put good boards to the right hand side, bad boards to the left, and the ones on the left have got things in them I think that make them unusable. The floorboards on the very very left hand side are the worst. Moving right to the best, and then on the right hand side, I keep that graduation going so that the very best boards are to the right on the right hand side. I'll show you the problem I've got that Garden Buildings Direct think is okay. Let's put the camera up. Look along here from here to here. No tongue. Don't know if you can see this on camera, but no tongue here. No tongue at the end to lock into the groove. There's no tongue whatsoever from here to here. So, there'd be a gap. Oh, and uh there's a hole there from here to here. No tongue. No tongue from here to here. And there's a big crack from here to here. Big hole in the floorboard. Big hole in the floorboard. And another one here. Big hole in the floorboard. Hole. Hole. No tongue from here to the end. Big hole. Big hole. There's no tongue from here to the end. No tongue from here to the end. So that doesn't interlock. No tongue from here to the end. Oh, and there's a nice hole here to see you with
I don't know what to do. I think what I'm going to do cuz that's not enough boards on that side to do the whole shack. But I think I'm going to try and put the nice ones sort of in the middle. So, those ones you'll see. And also, I'm thinking those are the ones that will take the most traffic. With my floorboards sorted, this is I thought this was going to be a breeze, and it wasn't. Uh, it was very tricky because the some of the floorboards just weren't in a good condition. I've got to choose and mix them up so that the the boards that have the tongue missing at the end, that that tongue is towards the other end. It's not at the entrance. And I'm also choosing that the not so good boards for the edges. And then as I get into the middle of the shack, I'm trying to favour the floorboards that are the straighter ones, the ones with fewer knots and the ones where the tongue is is okay to go into the groove. So when it rains, it will go onto the deck. You know that they are going to soak up moisture. They are going to curve up. I've moved some battens to near the door. because of the way I put it up, um there isn't that much of a lip for the floorboards to rest on. So, I've put some batterns by the where the door is going to be so that they don't curve up just at the point where you step into the shack, you know, have a bit of extra uh support under there for feet coming into the front door. I'm trying to nail that. I'm not nailing all of them because it's pretty late and I don't want to be causing that much noise. It's now sort of 7:00 on a Sunday. Yeah, this is this is hard work and it's so much quicker with another pair of hands. If you're having to do anything like this, don't do it by yourself. Get someone get someone to help you. But the boards are so warped, we've got to put nails in just to hold them in place so that the later boards that go in aren't going to be uh you know gappy. There are some gaps where there's the tongue's missing. Stop. Stop. Why? So, something bad just happened. I've had to come away from the house to record this. Um, we got yelled at. Well, we didn't get yelled at. My wife got yelled at. I didn't get it on camera, but uh someone banged on the door like really bam bam bam and uh complained about the noise completely reasonably cuz it was half 8, quarter to 9 and we were still hammering. uh needed to get it down for the builder coming tomorrow morning, but um yeah, it didn't go down well. Told that it's been going on for weeks, which is kind of true that they're trying to enjoy a meal in the garden and all they can hear is banging. And they weren't they weren't from like next door or the next door to that or the door next to that. This was from like way up the road. It has been going on for weeks. I'm sick of it, but I can't do it when it's 34°. We're in a middle of a heat wave. This this like the hottest temperatures ever recorded for July. But it's really embarrassing for my wife and my wife had to take the brunt of it as well. She just came in. She's like, "Stop, stop, stop." So, uh, but at least we've got the boards down. They're ready for the builder tomorrow morning to uh start work on the windows and doors. It's the end of the next day and I wanted to end the video on a on a bit of an up because we've got some developments with the shack. We're calling it the shack now, I think. Take a look at this. We have proper barge boards on and I love how I love how they look. I think they look great. And you probably noticed it's had a bit of a... a facelift. We've got the felt which I believe protects it from moisture. stuff is going to go on top of that. So, it's all still to play for. It's just looking great. And also, uh, he managed to finish off the the floorboards as well. I still need to nail quite a lot of nails in. You can hear it creaking. My son and I didn't we've not done any down the side and a lot in the middle that haven't been done yet. That's a bit of banging, I guess, but we can do it during the daytime and I'm going to space it out over the week as well. We also have some window frames. They're work in progress. But look at this. Look how good they love the the overhanging lip. Can't wait to see how that works out. And we've got the door frame as well. So now there's something proper to fix to instead of the the wobble wobble. The doors instead will have a proper frame to attach to that does not wobble wobble through. Sturdy sturdy. On screen now are all the other videos with our shack, our build. If you want to follow this journey, thank you for making it this far and hitting the thumbs up or the subscribe button. Really helps me to keep this channel going, to keep these videos going. And right here is what YouTube knows you want to be watching next.
It is the final reveal of our Garden Buildings Direct BillyOH Winchester log cabin rescue. After weeks of warped timber, buckled roof, angry neighbours, and custom framing by a former movie set builder, our garden summerhouse and pod office is finally finished.
Come see the completed horizontal cladding, the rock-solid front frame, the repaired floorboards, and how we handled the wibbly-wobbly walls.
Here's the full 360 tour or our new Garden workshop!
THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
It's the next day of our log cabin build and you can probably see it in the background. Take a look at this. This is absolutely incredible. So, the front cladding is now on. I think where where we last saw it, some of the window frames have been done and the door frame, but look at this beautiful cladding. Uh, so we had the the felt, the rainroof felt put on as like a skin for the outside. What I love most though is look how scarfed in everything is. There's so much detail here that the the boards meet the the joists and the frames absolutely perfectly. This is how I wanted the log cabin to look and not like uh not like this from Garden Buildings Direct, the BillyOH Winchester cabin. If you haven't seen my earlier videos, I've got a playlist on screen now and down in the description. That's the the body of this log cabin. It didn't go very well. We had uh problems with the walls and the especially the fronts. The fronts just didn't meet the the roof. There was a big gap because it relied on these really small pieces next to the door frame. So, the door frame had no strength at all. And also in the heat. Oh, look. We've managed to get some felt around it. It hides the wibbly wobbly wall. I see if I've got some archive footage of quite how bad the uh the curvature of the walls is. I thought I'd give you a little uh sneak peek around the back. It's just as tidy. I had to leave enough decking so that I could put some weather proofing on. Um I probably left a bit too much room behind the the shack, but at least we can get to it. And I suppose I could I could use it for some storage as well. Maybe somewhere to put all of this useless wood, but it just looks so smart. Um I can't remember if these were on. We got barge boards on as well. Uh let's go in. So it's been watertight for a while. I guess we'll have to do something with the with the walls, but I'll wait for the doors and windows to go on. That will be next week. And yeah, you can see quite how bad the walls are. Look, can you see just how bad they are? Look at that. Oh, the window frame is straight obviously now. But that's what we had to contend with. The builder even put up an extra plank here, an extra log, partial log because it's just not straight at the top to the bottom. So that's now true. And that meant that the the roof had somewhere to go. But I don't know if you can see on the joist, I've got some Yeah. gaps in the walls. So, I'd like to seal those up once it's all done. And I've just seen a blooming. This is my wife's plant that's already it's growing into the into here. So, we'll have to uh eradicate that. I go around the back and pull that into that gap as well. Yeah. So, I'll seal that up. Let's go and get rid of that plant. So happy with how it's looking now. How can I get to that plant? I have to go the other side. So, this was where I was passing the uh the joist to my son and not communicating very well.
And uh yeah, so I'll have to deal with that as well. But at least the cabin hides it. I need to move these plants cuz I don't want it growing into the roof. Oh, it's up there. Look at that sneaky blighter. Maybe it's extra insulation. Put it on the top. Try and train it. But yeah, the plants uh really taken to it already. So, I don't think it'll be long before that plant is growing over the roof. It's the next day, the very next day, and I think this might even be the final day of this log cabin build. It's is behind me right now. I can't turn around cuz it's too good. It's too It's too nice. A look at it. It's done. It's finally done. I I knew we'd have this day eventually, but to see something that was so rickety and broken and not solid to now look like this is breathtaking. Let me show you some of the features of the final touches that have been put on to this beautiful log cabin, garden, office, pod, workshop thing. This thing is absolutely gorgeous. I've changed my shirt, by the way. Let's go in and I'll I'll try and point out as many things that I love about this as possible. So, this is the room. This is a bit like a Grand Designs reveal, isn't it? I've got some creaky floorboards because we haven't finished nailing the floorboards down, you know, that enraged the uh the rest of the street. It got up to 40° in here yesterday, which is kind of why I'm doing this in the morning now. But oh my goodness, look at what the builder did with the with the window framing. So, we got lovely proper framing around it. We've used the the furniture, the handles from the BillyOH Winchester, which I I think they're slightly twee. I don't quite like the brass look, but my son loves them, so we're going to stick with it. Um, you've got frame around the door, but the door frame, there was a wobble wobble on the BillyOH Winchester original front that we had. I was trying to explain this a few times where the gap between the window and the door was made up of little tiny versions of these. Actually, I can show you. The wall was built up using these blocks between the window and the door, which meant that firstly they didn't actually get up to the roof height. There was a huge gap about 5cm, 5 to 7cm. So, I tried putting them at a wonky angle just to kind of spread them out and bite into the roof, but it meant that the whole wall between the window and the door just wobbled and it just and it didn't connect to the roof. I think it's a problem that's unique to this width of cabin. So, if you get a 4.5m wide cabin, you're going to get these blocks and they're not good. They're really Whoa. doing Casper. They're they're not good. And this is why we've had to get quite a financially substantial build to to have a solid wall for the door and window to lock onto. But this is absolutely solid and insulated as well. So there's a there's it's a proper wall. With the original walls, I kind of like that we've got this wibbly wobbly design from the BillyOH Winchester where these these timbers have warped in the hottest July ever recorded. Uh you can see we've got this quite original design. It is kind of medieval. Uh which I kind of like. But look, I don't know if it comes across on camera, but it's not straight. This is straight and true. And the builder had has he's kind of carved into it. So the frame the the walls kind of eat into the frame which I... I like. I think it looks original. We've got it on the other side as well. Look at that. Oh my goodness. Look at that wave. So it's straight at the bottom, but where the original roof was nailed to the walls and it took the 38° heat. Uh you can see how much it warped and the distance between the the window frame and the wibbly wobbly wall which is straight at the bottom. So it kind of bows out which I guess gives us extra room in the in the shack. So that's good. I think we're calling it the shack um because I've got the happy hut. The huts at the end of the garden. It it got dubbed the happy Hut. That was the original building. That's where I make all my YouTube videos. We've also got some gaps where these have never met. And this was just where the the timbers were were twisted. And they were they were like that on arrival. When the roof was nailed on, the walls really twisted because it took heat at the front. the roof pinned it in place and the only way it could expand was to was to do its thing is to just twist and warp which is unfortunate because it means we've got these these gaps. So there is tongue still in the groove. I'm slightly worried about when it gets to winter apparently these cabins really do contract and the the logs fall even further into place. They're not nailed together. The instructions said don't nail them. I'm hoping that if they do fall that they'll they'll kind of lock in better as they fall into place. But I'm a bit worried because some people have shown these massive holes appearing in in their billio cabins. Do you know what? We managed to fix this. We managed to get someone to help us fix this. So, I'm kind of hoping that if anything bad does come up, then it's all fixable. We we'll manage to find a thing. We can't see the back of it. So if if there were holes on the walls there, maybe we could put some kind of cladding on the back just to keep it insulated and hole free. The first question anyone ever asks whenever whenever I show them the happy hut if they're male, the very first question, it's always the first question guaranteed is how do you get power to to the cabin? What have you done with the electricity? Um yesterday we had uh electrician in to connect the new hob, the new kitchen hob, our IKEA hob smashed. Um so we had an electrician in and I took him up the garden to to get a quote for this. And what we're thinking of doing getting two power outlets, having a socket in the leftand corner there and another socket in the right hand corner there. and he suggested putting some kind of junction box at the top so that we can fit lighting so that I won't have wires trailing up the wall which is fantastic and all of that wiring can take place at the back so I won't actually see it. It will just come into the hut. We'll have armored cable and that armored cable already runs from the the hut to the garage. I don't know if we should do some extra fancy lighting. I don't know if it's going to be too much if we got some kind of LED strip underneath the barge boards here. Um, it it would look cute, I think, for about 5 minutes and then I think it might get a bit annoying. But I don't know. That's that's what you think. Say say in the comments how you would light this. My son wanted he just wants fluorescent strips. He wants it to be like a working workshop. I... I... I think that would be a shame, but uh you know, to make it look like some kind of sweat shop factory, but I guess that's kind of what this is going to be used for. So, as I step on the the creaking floorboards, the the only touch of interior design we've added is the IKEA melon doormat and a Costco very industrial wipe your feet doormat because it does get uh muddy even on the few steps leading up to the the shack. The other thing I really absolutely love is the the lap board. I don't know what you'd call this. This kind of echoes and mirrors the the fencing boards that we had put in about a year and a half ago. I... I've made a video about that. Um that was our brother-in-law made that. It still looks absolutely gorgeous. We have that echoed. The builder saw that and said, "Well, I could use that kind of stuff for for the cladding." So, he's gone he's gone horizontal on here. All I can compare it to, and this is this is a compliment. It sounds like it's uh it's a this it looks like one of the shacks in Frontier Town at Chessington. It looks like something that you'd get in a theme park, which I really, really love.
And the detail that we've got, um where the boards meet the edges and where the edges meet the roof. Um, he sworded the the joists at the front to give them this diagonal angle so they don't jut out. I was more than happy to have juty out joists, but he he kind of finessed them so they'd blend into the barge boards on the roof here. Let me let the footage speak for itself now. I'll try and show it to you from every angle with some music just to show you as much detail as possible because on the wide shots, I don't think it does it justice. it... it just looks like how it should be. But so much thought has gone into uh every corner and every every part where the frame meets the wall. He's managed to scarf in really lovely detail and it's also so solid at the front. I can't tell you how wobbly and holy and insubstantial the front of this cabin was. And that is the side that's going to take the brunt of the weather. And it's also going to take the brunt of opening and closing the windows and the doors, every single entrance, the front of the shack just could not take uh when it was the BillyOH Winchester log cabin. I am very much calling this a dad delivers success. This has been a really difficult video to make because I didn't know that it was going to work out well. If you do hit the thumbs up button, it really helps me to keep these these videos going. And are you watching this video because you're thinking of a log cabin or a garden uh summer house or garden pod, garden office, workshop? Say hi in the comments. Tell me what you're thinking of doing and is this the kind of design that you're looking for. But as we move into the winter, I'll be making more videos like this. So, on screen now is the playlist for all of my cabin or I guess we're going to call it the shack, our log cabin videos.
After doorstep scams in our street and constantly missing parcel deliveries while working at the end of our garden, I decided to install the Eufy Security Video Doorbell E340 with chime. I walk through the complete step by step setup, from unboxing and app pairing to wiring the camera into our existing door frame.
I share my honest thoughts on smart home complexity, dual camera package tracking, app firmware updates, and setting up the wireless chime. If you want to see how to hardwire the Eufy E340 and whether this dual camera doorbell is worth the setup frustration, here is my real world test.
THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
This is the Eufy security video doorbell E340 with Chime. I don't know if that's how you pronounce. Is it Eufy or Eufy? This thing. Put that there. This thing has been an absolute what's it to set up. It's been so difficult to connect it to itself and to the house Wi-Fi. But I think we need a video doorbell. A few days ago, uh, a neighbour in the street asked me if we have a video camera. Now, usually it's the Ring camera, isn't it? And those are owned by Amazon. And I said I didn't. I didn't. And it turned out that they had been ripped off, scammed for a lot of money on the doorstep. And it's easily done. I had someone knocking on the door telling me that there was a a tile loose on the roof. I know my roof is in a state, so I didn't need someone knocking on the door telling me it. It's a scam. It's just a way for them to case your house, and there's all kinds of distraction techniques. I thought, well, maybe maybe it is time to get one of these. I hate them. I uh when my son was 13, I actually made this video where we were just delivering leaflets. It was his job, but I ended up helping him. and it felt horrible going up to the doors um with a camera flashing light on it. It it really didn't feel good. So, I don't want to put legitimate people who've got to deliver things to our house through having to be recorded, but when we're away, it would be good to have some kind of monitoring. Also, I work in the happy hut at the end of the garden and sometimes it's just I just have to be in the house for a delivery. So, I can't do my work in my, you know, the YouTube studio. I thought having a doorbell that would have some kind of capability for me to reply or tell them it's okay to leave it on the doorstep or whatever. I thought it would just be helpful to have that, especially with people knocking on the doors. Even while I was setting this up, there were more people asking if they if they can trim your hedge is not legit. I just need some way of deterring people who don't want to do good things from our house. I'm going to show you how we put this up step by step, how we wired it into our existing system. It's got a battery, by the way, so you don't need to wire it up like this. So, this is what comes in the box with the Eufy security video doorbell E340 with chime. And it opens up by sliding the top off. Oo, this looks nice. Inside the box, we have the Chime. And I'm assuming from the back we can put a UK plug or other type of plug on the back there. And of course the E340 camera itself. Got a nice LED light on the top. Should I take the wrapping off? Let's do it. There's the camera, the button, and underneath there's a second camera with LED lights. On the back, these screws are to connect it to your existing doorbell wiring if you want to. And this battery pack charges up here. There's a USB-C port to charge up this battery pack. And there's a tag here which if you pull out, it reveals a QR code underneath for this particular camera. It's a sticker and instructions, some fitting screws and wall plugs or wall anchors. There's the UK plug. There's a European plug, USB-C charging, a pin for removing it from the the base. And this is the base that I will screw onto the door frame. And there's a hole there for the existing wiring. There's also a wedge so you can put this underneath the base to set the camera at a jaunty angle. And we have some jumper cables if your leads from your doorbell wiring aren't long enough. To set the chime up, you can line up these lugs into the holes here and then you twist it into place. So, I've charged up the Eufy doorbell camera with the USB-C cable, and I've set up a Eufy account in the Eufy app. I know it's I just find it really annoying that we've got to create a subscription for every single thing that we buy now. And it brings me to this page, all devices, add device. The first thing we need to do is to pull out this tab here. It reveals a QR code. turn the doorbell video camera on. So, there's a button here, sync. I'll press that once and see what happens.
Hello. Okay, so I know that this works. Now, if I hit add device and it says allow access to Bluetooth, so I'll hit yes. And then I need to find this camera on here. So, I think it's under doorbell chime. There we go. So, I'll click on doorbell chime. And we've got three choices here. I'll go for video. Oh, is it doorbell chime? No, it's the video doorbell. Allow Eufy to access the camera. Okay, I'll go. Yes. Now, I'm going to scan the QR code. And it's given me these three choices. I think what I want to do is connect it to my Wi-Fi router. So, I'll click on that. Allow location. So, now I can put in the password of our Wi-Fi router. And I need to go and ask my kids now what that is cuz I can never remember it. So, I got my kids to type in the Wi-Fi password that I forget every time. It now says, "Press the sync button." That's this button here for two seconds until you hear a beep. And the LED is flashing blue. So, hold this for 2 seconds. There we go. So, it's flashing here. It's got an option here. Heard a beep. So, we heard a beep. Please use the doorbell to scan the code on your phone. Okay. And it says once scanned, you will hear two beeps. Oh, no. There we go. Connect to the Wi-Fi network. It did it. Connecting to the Wi-Fi. Keep the camera close to the router. Setup was successful. Oh, it worked. Added successfully. You're almost done. Please follow the rest of the steps. Right, I give it a a name. So, I'm going to call it front door. Oh, it's got a firmware update. So, I'll hit update. And what's happening here is that there's some software that controls this device. We recommend enabling end to-end encryption. Right. So, is it added then? So, it's brought me to this page. There's nothing there. But if I click on security, it brings up this message. Cannot receive notifications from cameras or sensors. Learn how to set. Let's have a look. Four steps to receive notifications. Oh, I don't know about any of this. You can turn notifications on and off. A this has already overwhelmed me. My camera has appeared on the security tab and it's saying front door updating. So, I think it's still updating the firmware on here. Now, I've got this white screen. If you tap on the screen for your camera, it comes to life. So, I've tapped on front door and look at this. So, I've tapped on front door and look at this. I am in glorious stereo and I've had to turn down my phone because there's a delay. I can hear this. This is how the camera looks. You can see there are two cameras. There's one on top and one down below to show the the package. And it is now showing my package. It's going to be fantastic to be able to see if there's someone at the front door cuz the times I've missed packages just cuz I'm at the end of the garden. I think that's going to be the biggest case use for this. Next, I'm going to annoy the whole house, the whole family by turning off the the power to the house. And I wish there was a just one switch I could throw for the front doorbell, but there isn't. So, everything will come off. Oh, that didn't sound good. Let's turn everything off. And don't worry, the blanking plates back on. So, everything's off now. And I'll just Ow. I've seen online that Eufy video doorbells don't work very well with older transformers. So, I'm hoping our very old transformers from before when we got the house. It looks like it's from the early '90s. I'm hoping that this transformer will be powerful enough for the video doorbell. And this is the horror that I'm I'm going to replace. Can't wait to see the back of this. The twee brass look. Oh, his days are numbered. It's time to go. Oh, let's just check that it doesn't ring. Yep, everything's off. I'm so happy this is coming off. This is wooden, so I'm hoping it it's going to be really easy to get the new frame on. Let's see what we've got underneath to play with. Oh my god, what a mess. All kinds of atrocities here over the years. Look at that. So, I've got I've got wires and it looks like four wires. So, I'll need a smaller screwdriver to get these out, but I've got no play. You know, I can't bring the doorbell out enough. And it turns out it's really simple. Look, I've got this dangly wire. I could just push it out more. It looks like it's really easy to unscrew these wires. And I've just got to make sure I keep the colours together. I am so glad to see the back of this brass thing, though. Even if it doesn't work, there's no way I'm putting that ugly thing back on the door. I need to check that this is in the right place. There's an easy way to check, obviously, if I just hold the camera here and get the app out. Can tell I've just held down the sync button and now the blue light's flashing. Failed to connect to the network. Please try again. Yeah, I know that it's not connecting to the app because the power's off. So, you can use the app to see if this is the right place before you turn the power off. It's a little tip there. What we're going to do is put the base plate on. It does have to be a particular way up. And I'm going to put it up as high as possible. I think it does come with a bunch of screws. I've got two. I think it comes with six. And it... they give you four wall plugs or wall anchors. I want it centre and I want it straight.
So this Oops. So this is I want to turn that off as well. Anyway, we've got the two screws on the back. So, if I loosen these, and then we've got to make electrical contact, good electrical contact, and avoid the wires touching each other. I hope this goes easier for you. It was really fiddly for me. Uh, but I managed to get the two wires onto the contact point. And now all we need to do is just clip it into the frame. So, I sit it on the bottom and then push it up and it should
snap into place. And that's it. There's a big gap at the back and I don't know why. I didn't notice anything at the back. Now, the way to take it off, and I'm going to deal with this later on, is that you get a a key, like a pin. It's just a pin. It's almost like one of those uh SIM ejector tools, and all you do is just press it in the top and the camera comes off really easily, which doesn't feel very secure. So, we're going to put a specialized screw in there, like a grub nut, to try and make that more difficult. Now, I think this isn't very good. They've put these bulgy out bits, which I didn't notice before. So, it means that when you hold the frame to the door frame, it sticks out. They've clearly done that to strengthen where the screw holds the frame to the door. But the problem with that is you get this gap, which I I don't like, unless you counter sync it, which obviously no one's going to do. So, I'm going to put it back on there. That is straight and flush. Well, not flush that side, but that's the best I can do. Now I can turn the power on and see if it works with the app. Bang. Now I can open up the Eufy app. And there I am. If I press on the front door, this is a live video feed. Oh my goodness, it looks made my belly not look flattering. But what's great is that this bottom camera does show uh where parcels have been left on the floor. So that that's really helpful. And if I press the doorbell, let's see what happens.
But this is in the right place. Now I'm going to set up the the the chime that comes with the Eufy doorbell. I'm just going to plug it in here. And already it's flashing red. So, I need to set this up. I was just setting the camera up and it started talking to me. There's now a solid green light there. So, that solid green shows that it's ready to set up. So, not when it's flashing red. Don't talk to me. I've got so many devices in my house that talk to me. Back into the Eufy app on the top right hand corner. I think this is add device. So, I'll hit add device and I'm going to scroll down to doorbell chime. and it's the doorbell chime at the bottom here. So, I'm going to click on that button. Now, I can scan the QR code. Now, I know the QR code is underneath the doorbell. So, if I just hold it under here, it's recommended to install the device between the router and the device. Don't know which device it's referring to. And it says press the sync button for 2 seconds until the LED blinks green. So, I haven't done any of that, but it's giving me this flashing animation. I don't know if I need to hold down the button for two seconds. Should I give it a try? On the top of the the chime, there's a sync button. So, I'm going to hold that down for 2 seconds. Wi-Fi doorbell chime is ready for setup. Okay, that's what it said before. I can introduce my doorbell to my fridge now. But I'm going to click on chime. So, right. So, I've clicked connect, but it's asked for a password. I don't have a password for the chime. Oh, man. It's where's what's the password? So, come out of the uh Wi-Fi setup. Ignore that. Go back to the app and press next. So, this means I can now connect it to my Wi-Fi. So, if I type in our password. No, no, no, no. Uh yeah, it it'll be about 3 minutes cuz I'm in the middle of fixing the door. I'll be with you in a moment. Okay. So, I'll enter our Wi-Fi password. Testing Wi-Fi connection. It says that this is now working. So, if I go and ring the door, I don't know why it's still saying it's still saying connecting. But it says it's connected. Oh, here we go. Give your home base a name. Oh, I'll just put chime there. Added successfully. Your device was added successfully. I hope my pain is helping you to avoid all of this. So, I'll now hit next. Right. So, now this can work as a chime. In this mode, the mini home base will only function as a chime. Recordings are stored on the doorbell or I can work as a home base. Recordings are stored on the mini home. I... I don't know what it means. Is it calling this a mini home base? I thought it was a whole other product. No, it it can detect there's no card in there. So, I'll just hit the first one. Now, it's doing a firmware update. When it comes from the factory, there's software that runs the chime. So, it's now updating it that they add new features and remove any bugs. So, sorry, I'm updating the firmware on the... this doorbell. I... It's just so much easier, isn't it? If there's a button that turns on the lights, you just press the button and the lights come on. You don't need to update firmware. You don't need to set up a subscription. You don't need to create a temporary Wi-Fi network to pair a device. You don't need to update the firmware. It's just a switch or a doorbell button. You press it and the thing goes ring. I need to do this because it would be really handy to be able to monitor the front door while I'm in the the happy hut in the garden. I'll be able to answer the door. I'll be able to take deliveries instead of being under house arrest and having to stay here for 4 hours instead of back up the hut doing some work. And... and also, you know, when we're away and we get deliveries, it's really handy to see that the delivery is there. And to some extent, I'm hoping it will protect that delivery. If there's something on our doorstep, at least we've got some kind of video surveillance on it. But it's another complication. It's more mental load. Some people can cope with this more than others. I don't think I can cope with this very well. And I... I don't want my fridge to have Wi-Fi. I have no need to communicate with my fridge. Maybe the fridge and the doorbell could have a some kind of, I don't know, chitchat. Maybe they could coordinate with each other because then they'd know when we're carrying food in. It's just a way of companies guessing into my head and and it's under the guise of convenience and features. And do you know what? Having an empty brain is a... I think that's a luxury. That's a feature. Not having to deal with any of this is the feature. I... I also don't like the idea of protecting my stuff. It's like I just need to be happy and spend time with my family. The stuff doesn't matter. The it it really truly doesn't matter. But that said, I would be uh a bit frustrated if the stuff were taken away. That's how they get you. Oh, here we go. 99%. Oh, here we go. No. What? Failed to update. So, we're now up to 100%. Fingers crossed it works this time. It's failed to update. What is the problem? I wonder if I can about device. So, if I go to about device, maybe I could try check for firmware update. Firmware is up to date. What? What? I've done all of that. Yeah, that's the firmware update. Look, that's today's date. Oh, you fe This isn't good. Rubbish. Absolute rubbish. So, it should work now. I'm going to go into the video camera doorbell and at the top on the top right hand that was fast on the top right hand corner. So we've got all these settings. I've got indoor chime. So I click on that. Uh so we've got these options. So you can add it to Alexa. That would be great, wouldn't it? To just complicate it even more. I think the one I want it says mini base repeater chime. Choose which chime. There we go. So, this is a mini base repeater. Nowhere does it tell you that. This is the mini bass repeater. I just wish Eufy had explained any of this anywhere. So, now we can change the chime ringtone.
This is exciting. I've sent my son to to ring the doorbell and I'm going to see if I can talk to him for the first time. Go for it, Joe. Right. So, I can hear the doorbell chime. Oh, and it's come to life on my phone, but you get a notification. Look, it says tap to respond to your visitors. So, I tap on that. What it doesn't say is that you need to click this phone handset button down in the middle here. So, I click on that. Now, it prompts you to access the microphone. So, I'll hit next and allow you to record audio. So, I'll say yes. Can you hear me? Now, do you have my parcel, please? No. It also gives you a crotch shots as well, which I'm not sure about. I hope this works for you. I hope that something here has helped you decide whether or not to buy this or if you have bought it that you you can avoid all the problems I've had installing it and setting it up. Thank you for hitting the thumbs up or the subscribe button. It really helps me to keep these videos going. And right here is what YouTube knows you want to be watching next.
How do you put up an IKEA HOPPVALS blind? I've put up about 8 Hoppvals and finally sharing how I'm replacing another one of these cellular blind installation! Sharing how I install my next IKEA Hoppvals blind in our new shack with step by step instructions...
THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
You have got the IKEA HOPPVALS cellular blind and and you need to put it up. So, I made a video like this in the in the heart, but we need to put up two more around the house. So, I'm going to walk you through the process here. Uh it's it's a lot easier than it looks, but it is a bit daunting if you've not done this before. Firstly, in the in the box, you get the blind. This has got a sticker on it. You can take that off. Yeah, if you do it [laughter] If you do it slowly, not like me, it should come off and not leave a mark. But, I've managed to leave goo all over it. That's for future me to sort out. And there's also some instructions here tucked into into the blind. Oh, you did this. No, I took it out. I got I got I got it. I got it. I'm Inside the blind, there's like this big spring. It didn't used to be like this. It used to be just the pulley. And when you pull the blind down, the spring pulls and it holds its position. So, you can have it at any position you want, which is lovely. I love these. [music] And putting them up is a lot easier than it looks. So, the way it works, if you've not used this before, is that you get these two brackets. They're in the cardboard box. You also get a little pulley thing, which I'll put on at the end. So, the way it works is that these uh hooks onto the wall are actually spring-loaded. Pretend this is on the wall. You can clip the blind to it like this. I'll push the button and it clips. You also The [music] great thing with this is that you don't have to be too precise about where you put it because you can adjust how you want the blind to be. [music] But, we're going to put them in roughly the right place anyway. And then to take the blind off, you squeeze the trigger here, the spring-loaded button, and then it clips off really easily. So, all we need to do is to put these clips in roughly the right place. If you come around, I'll get my son to do this. But, what I was thinking, Cho, was to cover this this window. We'll center [music] it about there. And I'll probably judge how far from the window you want it. I want it close enough to be blackout, but not too close that it will clash with the the window handle there. So, we're going to go for something roughly like that on this on this frame. Clever thing with hot files is that you can attach it two different ways. You can either attach it to the wall. So, if I wanted to attach it to the window itself, I could because there are two holes here to screw in in onto the wall or you can screw it to the ceiling or top of the frame here. There are two holes. One is actually buried underneath the the catch here. I'm going to put them in it up like this. You don't want it on the window, do you? That'd be weird, wouldn't it? What if that comes out with the window? Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. No, I think it will look tidier like that. You can always change it. You can always change it. No, cuz then we can have the window open and the blinds down. So, we're going to put the first catch up. I'm going to put it about here. And I'm seeing it, we want it to be fairly symmetrical because you can see the just the end of the of the catch there. Then I'm going to put the screw into the hole that is actually inside the catch. And if I screw it all the way down, it should clear. So, I'm going to screw this to the the top of the frame now. I'm going to just line it up to where I want it. And we do want it fairly symmetrical. And then we'll screw it in like this. Fantastic. And then I'll put a second screw in. The only thing to really make sure is that wherever you put them, that obviously you want the clips to be inside the clearance of the [music] blind here. So, if it's too close to the edge, it won't clip. So, it really has to be somewhere here in the [music] middle. And we've got like plenty of room either way there. So, I'm going to put this one up now. Did it come with screws? It didn't come with screws. It's one of the biggest questions I get on the channel. I wish I could tell you which screws to get, but I don't know what wall type you've got. I'm screwing this into wood, so I'm just using these chipboard screws. They work really well for me. This is where the magic happens. So, I'm going to if you come really close there, Joey. You could do it either way, but I'm going to hook this lip under the bottom of the frame there, the hook there. And I'll do that on both sides. And then if I pull it up, you can see it it snaps into place. You can push these to help you do that. And to release it, it's exactly the same but the opposite way. You see, you press that [music] button in and that releases the catch so the blind can come down there like that. So, I'll just snap it into place again. This time I'll press the button. So, that's a lot less noisy, isn't it? And then because it's just a clip, you can shimmy it to the right [music] place. So, I'm going to have it about there. That looks central, does that? So, we're going to put the second one up now. Take out the instructions. Get your pulley thing and the two hooks. Line up where you want the hook to to go and plan those in advance. Get the screw into the hole and screw the hook into the ceiling or the wall. And repeat that for the other hook and the other screws. Just snap on the pulley thing into place and then you can slide it into the middle of the blind. Then [music] clip the blind onto the hooks. Done. I am calling this a Dad Delivers success. Thank you for hitting the thumbs up or the subscribe button if this video is helping. And good luck with your IKEA HOPPVALS cellular blinds. It's easy. Give it a try.
The day has finally come to sort out our kitchen corner! We are unboxing and building our brand new dining table: the Nkuku Fia large dining table (FT1010). At 2m 20cm long, 90cm wide, and weighing in at 94kg (with a total delivery package weight of 105kg), this turns out to be the ultimate heavy lifting challenge.
I tackle unboxing this massive slab of mango wood with my son, figuring out the iron leg attachments, and flipping this 100kg beast upright to see how much crucial space we have reclaimed in the kitchen.
THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
So, the day has come. We finally sorted out this corner of the kitchen. It means I'm going to flash forward. I can't see what you're seeing right now. This, I'm hoping is our brand new kitchen table. [music] And it looks incredible. Except I don't know that it looks incredible because I haven't built it yet. So, let's unbox this. It is an Nkuku FT1010 FIA dining table large. So, this one is 90cm wide and 2m 20cm long. It weighs 94 kg. The whole package that we're we're hauling here is 105 kg. And oh, it it heavy. Thing is, I have no idea how we're going to get this out of the box. It is so heavy. Oh, this is the ultimate unboxing. I don't think I've ever unboxed something so heavy. So, it's a lot lighter, you know, in colour than than I thought it would be. You thought it would look like this? Well, I remember when we were in John Lewis and we saw it and I took loads of photos and video of us just sitting at it just to try and imagine what it would be like. And I even I even took a photo or a video of where how it would look from this angle. So, this is the angle now. And I had to imagine this angle was the same as the angle that we were looking at the table. But now look at it. It's just enormous. I... I don't know if there are any instructions. It's just... it's just a big block of wood, isn't it? I love the the corner edges here. That's so nice. I think the reason it weighs so much is that it has these really solid metal legs. I think the next step is to lift this over to the side. Uh, should we push it? I can't [laughter] I can't push it
There. Do you think that's enough space if I fold this open? Okay.
I mean, this could damage the floor as well as the table. Oh, well done.
It doesn't sound good, does it? I'm hoping it's the cardboard. [laughter] It doesn't sound good, does it? Yeah, it's the cardboard. Please God, it's cardboard. So, now have a look at the Nkuku legs. I should have called you Nkuku. That would have been a cool name.
"Nkuku! Put the pigeon down!" Right. So, here's one leg. Can you find for his treasure hunt? Oh, jeez. These are really heavy. Are there any like bolts or instructions or anything? Joe, if I lift it up quick, quick, quick. Look underneath. The bolts are in. Yeah. Oh, so they're making that noise on the cardboard. Punching through and going into our floor. Into our floor. Okay. Well tell you what. If we take the leg over here, maybe we could flip it upside down again. Maybe I was supposed to open it the other way up, but the box was folded this way. Upside down. How the flip are we going to flip it back up? Exactly. [music]
So, unless we've... we've not found the instructions yet. I know it's really simple, but I just need some confirmation. Underneath, we've got these bolts, and you undo them by hand. Uh, and they're lettered A, B, C, and D. And then on the legs, the really super heavy metal legs, we've got corresponding letters. So, how hard can this be? I have to go to screwfix to buy a wrench. Do you think we bent...? Look, [clears throat] the other one's really bent. Joe, I can't take this one off either. Should we lie it on its back? We're going to have to, aren't we?
You sure about the bare feet? [laughter] It is the hottest day of the year. Right. So, we got ...What? We got... Let me see. So, we're going to lay... lay it down. Fingers crossed. And a couple of them that they don't look straight. So, I'm hoping it will just go in straight first time. Yes. Here we go. And that's laid down. Yeah. Yeah. Have you used it all on the bike? Uh, yeah. I think there's an upside and a downside with these. Oh, [laughter] I've put the nuts on! I don't know. Oh my god. I've just put the nuts on before the legs. [laughter] Yeah. Put the legs on first before you put the bolts on.
You look like those men who build things in... like the hole in the ground and they're like digging with their hands.
So, now we've got both legs on. Uh, it's time to get it into its final position. This is a momentous moment. Here we go. Ready? Going to flip it that way. Yeah.
Yeah. Then we leave it. Job done. Okay. So, if we lift it that way a bit. I don't go to the gym. So, you're moving and I'm not. Yeah. Thanks. Ah, it's the circle of life. Ready? One, two, three, go. Sorry, I can't. My fingers are under it. Okay. One, two, three, go.
Wow. Look at that. Oh, it's not. It's a lot higher than I thought it would be. We didn't check the height, did we? No. No. Look. Yeah. Our food will be closer to our mouths. I don't like seeing you disappear under a 100kg object. Ready?
Oh, wow. This looks so much better than our last Our last table we absolutely loved. But our last table was 1m wide and this is a crucial 10cm narrower. It does look odd though, doesn't it? I suppose we're so used to seeing the other one. Can I go now? Yeah, you can go now. Thanks for your help
We tour Costco to check out all the latest Christmas Lego sets haul, rate them out of 10, and break down the prices!
From the bizarre Gingerbread AT-AT walker and Star Wars Advent Calendar to the 10/10 Shrek, Donkey & Puss in Boots swamp display, we take a close look at what is actually worth picking up...
THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
So, these are the Legos, the Christmas Legos in Costco. I've got to say it the American way. I don't I can't believe this. Look at this abomination. It's a... It's A Christmas AT-AT. Did I say it right? AT-AT I call them AT-AT Yeah. Uh but it's made of gingerbread, I think, is the idea. But what do you think? It's like a cyborg gingerbread. It's like they they were like, "Let's make it in gingerbread." And then that's not actually. What score out of 10 would you give that? Two. Two. Okay. On to the next one. Number two for the ATAT. What about this one? There's a Star Wars Oh, it's a Star Wars advent calendar. 2026, but this is the back. And why does that matter? It's 2026. Still got 25 days. It's not like an actual calendar.
You get 24 gifts. I wonder what the gifts would be. There you go. I should show the prices. So, it's a score out of 10 for that. That's like six. A six. A solid six. Looks like Christmas. It's going to be tiny, isn't it? Okay. Now, how much is that? This one. Oh, it's like £22. That's good, isn't it? Because that's like £1 a day practically. And this is the Marvel Lego. You could buy one advent calendar every day. All right. So, this is the Marvel one. Marvel... I think I prefer the Star Wars one. What do you think? We got What is that? That's just a few bricks. Look at Wolverine. What have they done to him? Right. So, what score would you give that? Three. A three for the Marvel one. Two. No, they're both £22.78. Put that there. Who would buy that? I don't know who'd buy that. I Someone who loves Santa. No, I like Lego, but I mean this, you know, who's going to have that in their I mean, maybe it'd be nice to put up in your house. Yeah, maybe. I like So, this is a Lego iconic upscaled Santa figure. 40820. This is Guess how much? Guess how much? Yeah. Well, it's 40 41.98. Yeah. So, and what score do you give that? Uh, for for Christmas decorations, that's that's a seven. Seven. Okay. That's pretty good. for a seven for for the decoration. Christmas now. Okay, this we can get serious about. That's a 10. That is a 10. That's a 10. Yeah, that's a 10. Can we move the Oh, look. They've they've secured it in a in a tray, but you could just walk up with the tray. That's what it looks like behind. That looks really That does look good. Look, they put it in a security thing, but you could just take the whole thing. Walk away with it. Um, so that's the 10. Yeah. Okay. So that is the Shrek donkey and Puss in Boots and his little Puss-In-Boots. So that is uh £89.98 including the VAT, the Lego Shrek donkey puss in boots 72423 and last week and Pikachu I choose you with the thing poke ball. Poke ball. It's good that you can just you could just shake it really hard. Sorry, Pikachu. Should we break the Pikachu? I've got to catch it all. I've got to catch. Um, what would you give this? That's quite detailed. Give it 6.59. 6.59 for the Pikachu and PokeBall.
The red nose fingers. Oh yeah. Uh so that one's £60. £59.98. Uh, a count of this one. Yeah, Rudolph's red fingered alien. Why is it red? I don't know. I don't know where he's put it. But this is Lego ideas extraterrestrial. Look, I love the way he wobbles. It jiggles. There you go. ET's bar. So, that's good. Guess how much that is. 901.98.
So, £102 practically. As for the ET extra-terrestrial uh 21370, there's the price there. What is that? There's lots of them. Someone Well, that is an abomination. Look, someone I don't know if you can see it on the Someone scraped their key. So, what's this? This is the K-pop demon hunters Oh, I remember. Is this K-pop demon hunters? Oh, yeah. Look, there's K-pop demon hunters. It's the weird thing that follows them everywhere. Right. So, this is Derpy Derpy Tiger. Do you think that's Derpy Tiger? Yes. Uh, and Sussy Bird. Tony Tony Chopper. Sussy Bird. So, which one is that? Sussy. So, Jen Alussy. And this is Tony. Tony Chopper. Some nice uh build ideas there. Look at that. I want to show you behind, but I can't lift up the security tower. Here we go.
So, this is
£41.98.
Tony, it's got a little sign on the bottom there. Tony Tony Chopper if you'll see that. Nice wobble action. Sussy. Okay, it's K-pop demon hunters at 72537 and 75643. I think Lego are advertising to adults a lot more now. Yeah. Look at this. That is that Donkey Kong. I think you can actually play it. It's the the end's fallen off. I think someone you can actually play it. Can you? Yeah. I want to play it. We got to ask an employee to unlock it. Yeah. Does it lift up? It just lifts up. Yeah, I'm sure. So, this is the Lego Super Mario Donkey Kong Arcade 72051. I really want to show you the back. Can I do that? Here we go.
There's all the mechanisms. I don't you can quite see that
with I'm assuming is that does it work? That' be incredible if it does work. I'm sure it does. Those
big Are they stickers or are they printed? They look printed. That's pretty good. So that's Donkey Kong Arcade 72051. That's £119.98.
And then I've I'll show you bit of Lego Super Mario Luigi and Mach 8. £119.98.
There he is. And um a road bike
£89.98. That looks quite amazing. That looks like it breaks all kinds of Lego building rules. Is that real? They just put big pieces together. Um I'll show you the box. Lego icons. So, that's the Lego in store at Costco for Christmas. Which would you buy?
A hands-on review and audio test of a classic retro telephone handset made for modern smartphones! This red rotary style receiver plugs into Android or iPhone via 3.5mm jack, USB-C, or Lightning adapters.
We unpack the heavy build quality, test the coiled stretch cable, and hear why it is so useful for long calls to relatives or bank queues while keeping your screen open for multitasking. Plus, a real-time call to see if the microphone and earpiece audio pass the test.
THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
This is a great gift idea, especially a gift idea for dads, but anyone would love this. It's a it's a handset for a mobile phone. So, this is an old retro style telephone handset. Comes with a really long stretchy cable. Uh, it's about a metre long, but if you stretch it, it goes to about two, probably 2.5m. And the idea is that instead of holding your phone to your brain and cooking your your lovely neurons and brain cells, if you're on a long conversation, maybe you would like this handset receiver retro style telephone. It's... it's the thing that you hold for making telephone calls. The idea with this is that you can plug it straight into your phone and it might be more comfortable to walk around and have a very long conversation with this instead of hunching over and cooking your brain with the antenna in the phone. The other advantage with this this be really useful for really long calls to banks as well as relatives. The other benefit is that obviously you can see your phone and you can use your phone during the telephone call. So, if it's a particularly boring call, maybe you could, I don't know, watch some YouTube videos, watch some Dad Delivers videos on there, or look up contacts. It's a way of separating the headset from the from the phone, but with a a headset that you can hold. It's such a retro feeling holding this again. I'm so not used to it. I've probably not done this for about 30 years. So, this is how the classic phone receiver handset comes in the box. And it's very simple. Comes beautifully wrapped. And what I noticed is that the handset itself feels really substantial. It feels really nice and heavy. Not... not uncomfortably heavy, but it feels like a proper old style retro phone handset. I used to have a rotary dial phone when I was growing up. It's not quite as chunky as the old British telecom handsets, thankfully, but it's big enough to to hold comfortably in the hand and not feel like empty plastic. It does feel like there's a good receiver and speaker inside. And it comes with a really generous cable. I'd say that's about a meter of cable and stretched. It's it probably goes to about 2m as well. Like the old handset in Roseanne if you're old enough to remember that sitcom. This is the clever bit because it comes with a USB-C adapter, a 3.5mm jack to USB-C, so you can plug it into your Android phone. I've gone for the Android version. There is a version where this adapter is a lightning adapter. So, if you've got an iPhone, this handset will work with it. You just need a lightning adapter. The 3.5mm jack is TRRS, which means it's both a microphone and a earphone connector. And that just goes into the phone. They come in a range of colors. I've gone for a very snazzy retro red because that is the rotary phone that we have in our house. Now, on the old receivers, you used to be able to unscrew the the microphone and the the earpiece and see the the technology inside. You can't do that. It's sealed and it looks as if it's screwed here and here and covered with these buttons. I think they're just to hide the screws. So, there's no button on it at all. It is just a handset to hold. Now, I just wanted to check if I can listen to music. Here's the music playing. If I plug it in, so it cuts the the speaker. You can hear it through the the receiver. I mean, it sounds like a bad telephone call.
So, if you want to listen to music, But let's see what it's like to make a phone call. I'm just going to call my son. It's Saturday morning. I don't think he's up yet. Here we go. I'm just holding up to the the microphone now. Keep it family friendly. Hello. I'm not feeling very well. So, I have no idea what you said, so I hope I hope it was clean. He said that the sound quality is good and that he could hear me clearly. So, and my son is very uh particular about his audio. I'm calling this a Dad Delivers success! If you want a retro handset for your mobile phone, I'll leave a link down in the description. And if you've reached this point in the video, thanks for hitting the thumbs up or the subscribe button. I have lots and lots of other dad gift ideas on this playlist here.
What happens when a DIY garden room build goes completely, horribly wrong?
When our budget garden log cabin arrived with warped boards, missing tongues, and walls that completely buckled during the UK heatwave, our dream garden office build looked completely ruined. But instead of tearing the entire thing down, an unexpected rescue from an ex-film set carpenter completely changed the game. Here is the full story of how a nightmare BillyOh Winchester cabin build was transformed into a one-of-a-kind bespoke garden workshop.
Here's the full 360 tour or our new wooden Garden pod office!
THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
This is our wooden garden office log cabin. It looks absolutely beautiful now and it's used every day by my son. But when we were building it, it went very, very wrong. This is the entire story of how we bought a Winchester Billy O summer house that was meant to look like this. The parts ended up looking more like this. It took us weeks to build the parts. Well, many of them were more than a little bit warped. And because of the dimensions, it's 4 by 2.5 m, which meant some of the walls at the front had gaps and really wobbled. Yet, we finished it up to getting the roof panels and floorboards down, but the UK's hottest summer ever completely buckled all the walls and windows, and everything fell out of place. It was completely ruined and unusable. We had no idea what we were going to do next. So, this is the story of how a local builder helped fix this shack. And it turns out he used to be a carpenter on movie sets. The first thing we needed to do was dig a big hole in the garden and take delivery of a ton of wood. Our brilliant brother-in-law Steve built an entire floating deck for where the log cabin was meant to go. We had to dig holes by hand and used posts set in postcrete. It's a bit like driving ground piles in for a house build. Then Steve somehow designed this elaborate base that is attached to the posts, which is really difficult because the camera doesn't properly show quite how much of a slope we've got in our garden. Our dog Casper here was jealous because this is the area where for years he'd dig his huge holes. You've probably seen some of them on the channel. He's definitely looking disappointed here, but I think we might have finally found a way to stop that. We had to dig around all of the attempts we put down over the years to stop Casper digging. Here's a closeup of how the heavy frame is attached to the posts. When they were all down, and I think there were around 16 of them, Steve and my son could then build the decking. That would become the area where we could start to put up our massive log cabin. I think the decking itself is a bit of a thing of beauty. But it was difficult guessing how much room we wanted around the footprint of the log cabin itself. It had to be big enough to feel like a porch at the front without taking up half the garden. It is so solid and we really like the way it finished up looking. We had a bit of a hurry on in the bad weather because the log cabin had a delivery date. Though that delivery date kept getting pushed back and pushed back at no notice by the company for no reason. Finally, the Billio cabin arrived and the delivery driver was brilliant and he kindly helped us get all this stuff into the garden. So the uh so we've had the delivery. Really nice guy, really helpful. So I've got a bit of chicken and rice. We've got the this is what comes. Ignore that bit. But we've got these bits. We got two roof bits. We've got sides and ends. And then over here we have more sides. That's the back. I think these are the sides. And floorboards. These are the floorboards. There's quite a lot of those on the on the van. And then I think these were just packing uh spacers that we don't actually need. Oh, yeah. Of course, there's the frames for the windows and the actual windows and doors as well. So, we got two windows, two doors propped up against the wall for now. But yeah, this is pretty much how much comes.
Just before I put the camera on, there was this clang crash.
It happens. Right, let's go back to the time lapse. Oh man.
So, end of day three and didn't think we get this far. We got the window frames up. The we're on to some of the warped boards and they they're really bad. Um this one is down in that end and just up in the air here because this one is so warped. It's looking good. We're supposed to have done the floorboards because we don't have the technical details. Uh haven't put those in yet. And actually, it's a lot easier putting the laser on without wibbly wobbly floorboards.
It's the final rafter to go before the roof.
So, I'm showing this to my son for the first time. This is insane. Look at this.
This looks a lot better than whatever we did. We did. Oh my god. He's like Oh wow. And the the window fits in here. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that amazing? This when we put the one on the back. Yeah. Yes. That was the roof. It was really Oh my goodness. So, when I started this vlog, it was to try and capture things around the house, observations as a dad. This is the start of a series of vlogs. I don't know how long I'm going to keep this going, but I'm going to try and capture something every day. And today, I'm capturing this, which builder has built. It's It looks like a tiny house. It's amazing. And all of it is to fix something that didn't work out so well. Look. So, we tried building this. It's from uh it's called the Billy O Winchester cabin, and it's Yeah, it's meant to look like this. And in reality, it looks like this. Except it didn't look like this. We did, Joe and I, managed to get it all the way up to the roof. And we built the roof. We even got the flooring down. We just needed to get it to a point where someone who knew what they were doing could finish it off. And unfortunately, I think because of the materials, uh, it didn't work out because the walls that were straight when we put them up, but in the extreme heat, the walls have kind of now look like this. Let me go closer. The walls now look like this, and they just weren't holding at all. So, we couldn't get a window in. And I think it's peculiar to this this size of cabin because if you have a bigger cabin, you can have bigger walls here that hold the window, but all we had was just like a pile of pile of bits of these put on top of each other. They just didn't they didn't fit at all. We've paid for this with uh money from my dad who uh left us last year. So, we thought, you know, we treat treat ourselves and give my son somewhere to put his PCs. But this has been going on since uh since June. This has been going on for about two two and a half months. The wood was twisted at the beginning. I'm not that fussy. It's okay. I know that wood is a natural product, but this stuff had like knots and big holes in it. The floorboards weren't floor, they were holes, and they didn't lock into each other. So, I tried contacting the company. Again, this isn't a grievance-based attention farming video. uh it's just our journey that I contacted the company and said, "Look, can you help us out?" Because these floorboards, they're really not. And they just sent back usual icy shrug of indifference. So, Garden Buildings Direct thought that these boards were good enough. I beg to differ because if you've got floorboards on the floor and you got big holes in, you're going to see underneath the shack and there's water under there possibly. I just need proper floorboards and they they refused and I know I'm not experienced at this but it's been very disappointing. The Billy O Winchester I I wouldn't recommend it. So anyway, so now called a local builder who couldn't believe how they were supposed to go together. So this afternoon he's fashioned this. It's like an Amish building, isn't it? It's like an Amish barn that we're going to raise. And it's also um I don't know. It's like one of those things from the the black and white movies where I stand there and the whole thing can fall.
I'm so excited about this because it's a proper frame now that the that the window will fit. We we didn't have that with the Billy O Winchester. Yeah. So, this is this is what it should look like. And this is what it shouldn't look like. So, hopefully we'll have a place to put all of this one or two computers. We've not seen the kitchen table since November. It's about uh 10 months ago. We are days away from getting our kitchen table. All of that is to get the kitchen table. Can't wait. Casper, what do you think?
It's sunset on day two of trying to rescue our terrible garden buildings direct Billy O. Winchester cabin. It's actually Billy. Oh, no. Winchester cabin. Look at this. It's up. It's up. Let me spin the camera around. H. Finally, we have a front that's actually square, that doesn't warp in the sun, that doesn't have gaps in it. Well, it's obviously got big gaps, but they're for the window and doors, but they're true, so they're going to fit. And just to show you how bad the walls twisted in the heat, look, this this will really show up on camera. So, we've had to overhang. So, we our brilliant builder uh sorted this out. Look at this. Look how that wavy davyy line of the wall goes. That is how twisted it was. Um so it's almost like a feature now. Um it's like um it's character, isn't it? It's nice bit of character now instead of just gaping hole gaping holes for walls that weren't walls. Don't know how we're going to sort out the the floorboards, but yeah. Look at this. That is how badly twisted. Look, I mean, there's a blooming gap there. Um, awful. But anyway, the front is fantastic. And it turns out uh our build I'll run some footage of the of the frame going up and it really was like that Buster Katon thing where if it falls over uh you clear the door frame, but we we lifted it into position. He spent about what he he must have spent a day and a half designing and fashioning this front because it had to fit exactly the joists. Uh which I can show you now. Look, the joists and they just fit perfectly in a way they did not do with the Garden Buildings Direct uh Billio Winchester. Uh they're all gaps and this was all wrong. It was just off. Um, it wasn't anything we had done. It just it's just not straight. So, now it's perfectly straight. And the the gaps for the joists for the roof to go on tomorrow. I think we're going to get a roof on tomorrow. It's lucky we've got uh a week of good weather. Another week of no rain. Let's go back to the footage of the uh the frame going up and we had to push it into place um pretty exactly. So he he actually put a like a doors stop actually screwed it in so that it would push against it. We knew it would be in exactly the right position. Go back to the footage. And what you probably can't see is that there's a line of silicone uh down the side as well. Obviously it'll be it's all going to be screwed in to place as well, but the front is absolutely perfect. And the windows are in exactly the right position and it's centered even though the walls are wavy davy all over the place. Walls, we know that this front is is is perfect. And so it's going to look so good. I think obviously it doesn't yet match the log cabin look of the the rest of the of the shack, but uh I think we're going to I think he's going to clad it with feeder edge boarding. I think it's going to look really good. But underneath it, it's insulated. It's solid and it's square. It's perfectly square and perfectly straight in a way that it has never been. I mean, look, we I can show you now. This is how it came from Garden Buildings Direct. They just didn't these pieces, they just didn't they look straight, but when you put a pile of them uh in a row in a column, there's no way that that was going to be a perfect fit. It I mean just it just they just kind of teetered on the edge and the height of them didn't match the height of the boards on the right hand side. So, it's a bit difficult to explain, but you've basically got a pile of blocks like it's Jenga, and the windows and doors are going to slam against this this thing that wobbles. And I can really push this. It's totally solid. I can hang off this. I tried hanging off the other one just to kind of try and bring the the boards together, but this is totally 100% solid now. Turns out the builder used to work on film sets. Um, it does look like a film set build when it went up. It's just so perfect for this garden and for what I do in this garden with the video making. Uh, so I love that little part of the story with it as well. And it looks great on the decking that our brother-in-law made as well. I'm just so happy with how it's coming together. We were so worried that it wasn't going to work. Also, I think the the look of the the cabin, it was the the best that we could find for what we could afford. But the um it just looks a bit twey. It looks a bit like a sort of, you know, Daily Mail supplement, garden furniture ad kind of design aesthetic to it. It's not offensive, but it there's just something a bit old about it. And what what's nice about what we're doing now is I think it's going to look a bit more I don't know what the word is. It's not rustic. It's going to look homemade in a good way. So, that's the update on day two of rescuing our Billy O Winchester cabin. Really pleased with how this is going to come together. It's it's obviously taking so much more work, but at least I know that work is being done properly. I'll try to keep updates coming on the channel. I'll put uh I'll put these in a playlist, I think, and that's on screen now. This is the third update now of how we're trying to rescue our garden buildings direct Billy O. Winchester log cabin or as we've dubbed it Billy oh no. On the previous videos I explained how us putting the roof on actually made the front totally buckle in the heatwave and the warped boards. the they were just so twisted that eventually the walls kind of twisted the front off to the point where it was impossible to put the window frames in. We could put them in, but we couldn't attach them to anything. We got some help from a local builder who has managed to build an entirely new front for the log cabin. And turns out he's a a former set builder on film sets. So, we now have a garden cabin that's effectively a film set, which is what I wanted for this channel. And I think I showed this on the last video, but over here, you can see how bad the walls warped in the heat cuz that is a straight line. And yeah, you can see just how wavy uh it is. Look, I mean, I put my finger in the gap between the the logs there. The next big thing was I didn't put it on camera. He he managed to build a roof as well. So, the roof boards were completely useless. They completely buckled in the heat. They were too thin. I've got them under the top wall in here. Don't know why I'm protecting them, but they completely buckled under the heat and that's what was tearing the front of the walls off. So, he's built this completely new frame at the top here with plywood. And we've managed to Can I get the camera up there? We've got uh roofing felts. And I I went out and bought some new roofing felts as well because I think the stuff we had was total crap. So, it it's watertight, which is great cuz we had a little bit of rain yesterday. We're in the middle of a heat wave, though. So, it's mainly the heat that we're protecting the uh the cabin from. I've got a big job today, and that is Well, it's not big. I've got to put down the floorboards that we took up. These ones on the top look good cuz I've selected them. underneath there are all kinds of atrocities. We've got like I can point one out right here. We've got like big holes in the floorboards from knots, but I've also the tongues on the tongue and groove disappear to nothing. So the boards don't lock into each other. We I tried contacting Bu Garden Buildings direct and tried to explain the situation that can you help me out with some extra floorboards. They said no. Um the knots are there for a reason. But on their videos, the the floorboards they use are of course completely pristine so that you can't see down through the floor into underneath the log cabin. That's the whole point of a floorboard. The first thing I need to do is to remove these three floorboards. And this looks like a really simple job, but it's taking a bit of uh bit of work to get this final floorboard out. But the reason I'm spending so much time on this is that I can't mess around with these floorboards. I've only got a very specific number that are any good and even that is short of the number of floorboards that I need. So I need to get this out really carefully because I don't want any more damaged floorboards.
The next job is to sort out the floorboards that we've got. I've got this system going where I put good boards to the right hand side, bad boards to the left, and the ones on the left have got things in them I think that make them unusable. The floorboards on the very very left hand side are the worst. Moving right to the best, and then on the right hand side, I keep that graduation going so that the very best boards are to the right on the right hand side. I'll show you the problem I've got that garden buildings direct think is okay. Let's put the camera up. Look along here. From here to here, no tongue. Don't know if you can see this on camera, but no tongue here. No tongue at the end to lock into the groove. There's no tongue whatsoever. From here to here, so there'd be a gap. Oh, and uh there's a hole there. From here to here, no tongue. No tongue from here to here. And there's a big crack from here to here. Big hole in the floorboard. Big hole in the floorboard. And another one here. Big hole in the floorboard. Hole. Hole. No tongue from here to the end. Big hole. Big hole. There's no tongue from here to the end. No tongue from here to the end. So that doesn't interlock. No tongue from here to the end. Oh, and there's a nice hole here to see you with.
I don't know what to do. I think what I'm going to do cuz that's not enough boards on that side to do the whole shack. But I think I'm going to try and put the nice ones sort of in the middle. So, those ones you'll see. And also, I'm thinking those are the ones that will take the most traffic. With my floorboards sorted, this is I thought this was going to be a breeze, and it wasn't. Uh, it was very tricky because the some of the floorboards just weren't in a good condition. I've got to choose and mix them up so that the the boards that have the tongue missing at the end, that that tongue is towards the other end. It's not at the entrance. And I'm also choosing that the not so good boards for the edges. And then as I get into the middle of the shack, I'm trying to favor the floorboards that are the straighter ones, the ones with fewer knots and the ones where the tongue is is okay to go into the groove. So when it rains, it will go onto the deck. You know that they are going to soak up moisture. They are going to curve up. I've moved some batterns to near the door. because of the way I put it up, um there isn't that much of a lip for the floorboards to rest on. So, I've put some batters by the where the door is going to be so that they don't curve up just at the point where you step into the shack, you know, have a bit of extra uh support under there for feet coming into the front door. Trying to nail that. I'm not nailing all of them because it's pretty late and I don't want to be causing that much noise. It's now sort of 7:00 on a Sunday. Yeah, this is this is hard work and it's so much quicker with another pair of hands. If you're having to do anything like this, don't do it by yourself. Get someone get someone to help you. But the boards are so warped, we've got to put nails in just to hold them in place so that the later boards that go in aren't going to be uh you know gappy. There are some gaps where there's the tongue's missing. Stop.
Why? So, something bad just happened. I've had to come away from the house to record this. Um, we got yelled at. Well, we didn't get yelled at. My wife got yelled at. I didn't get it on camera, but uh someone banged on the door like really bam bam bam and uh complained about the noise completely reasonably cuz it was half 84 to 9 and we were still hammering. Uh I needed to get it down for the builder coming tomorrow morning, but um yeah, it didn't go down well. told that it's been going on for weeks, which is kind of true, that they're trying to enjoy a meal in the garden and all they can hear is banging. And they weren't they weren't from like next door or the next door to that or the door next to that. This was from like way up the road. It has been going on for weeks. I'm sick of it. But I can't do it when it's 34°. We're in a middle of a heat wave. This these are like the hottest temperatures ever recorded for July. But it's really embarrassing for my wife and my wife had to take the brunt of it as well. She just came in. She's like, "Stop, stop, stop." So, uh, but at least we got the boards down. They're ready for the builder tomorrow morning to, uh, start work on the windows and doors. It's the end of the next day, and I wanted to end the video on a on a bit of an up because we've got some developments with the shack. We're calling it the shack now, I think. Take a look at this. We have proper barge boards on, and I love how I love how they look. I think they look great. And you probably noticed it's had a bit of a a faceelift. We've got the felt, which I believe protects it from moisture. Stuff is going to go on top of that. So, it's all still to play for. It's just looking great. And also uh he managed to finish off the the floorboards as well. I still need to nail quite a lot of nails in. You can hear it creaking. My son and I didn't we've not done any down the side and there a lot in the middle that haven't been done yet. That's a bit of banging, I guess, but we can do it during the daytime and I'm going to space it out over the week as well. We also have some window frames. They're work in progress. Look at this. Look how good they are. I love the the overhanging lip. Can't wait to see how that works out. And we've got the door frame as well. So now there's something proper to fix to instead of the the wobble wobble. The doors instead will have a proper frame to attach to that does not wobble wobble through. Sturdy sturdy. It's the next day of our log cabin build and you can probably see it in the background. Take a look at this. This is absolutely incredible. So, the front cladding is now on. I think where where we last saw it, some of the window frames have been done and the door frame, but look at this beautiful cladding. Uh, so we had the the felt, the rainroof felt put on as like a skin for the outside. What I love most though is look how scarfed in everything is. There's so much detail here that the the boards meet the the joists and the frames absolutely perfectly. This is how I wanted the log cabin to look and not like uh not like this from Garden Buildings Direct, the Billy O. Winchester cabin. If you haven't seen my earlier videos, I've got a playlist on screen now and down in the description. That's the the body of this log cabin. It didn't go very well. We had uh problems with the walls and the especially the fronts. The fronts just didn't meet the the roof. There was a big gap because it relied on these really small pieces next to the door frame. So, the door frame had no strength at all. And also in the heat. Oh, look. We've managed to get some felt around it. It hides the wibbly wobbly wall. I see if I've got some archive footage of quite how bad the uh the curvature of the walls is. I thought I'd give you a little uh sneak peek around the back. It's just as tidy. I had to leave enough decking so that I could put some weather proofing on. Um I probably left a bit too much room behind the the shack, but at least we can get to it. And I suppose I could I could use it for some storage as well. Maybe somewhere to put all of this useless wood. But it just looks so smart. Um, I can't remember if these were on. We've got barge boards on as well. Uh, let's go in. So, it's been watertight for a while. I guess we'll have to do something with the with the walls, but I'll wait for the doors and windows to go on. That will be next week. And yeah, you can see quite how bad the walls are. Look. Can you see just how bad they are? Look at that. Oh, the window frame is straight obviously now, but that's what we had to contend with. The builder even put up an extra plank here, an extra log, partial log because it's just not straight at the top to the bottom. So, that's now true. And that meant that the the roof had somewhere to go. But, I don't know if you can see on the joist, I've got some Yeah. gaps in the walls. So, I'd like to see all those up once it's all done. And I've just seen a blooming. This is my wife's plant. That's already it's growing into the into here. So, we'll have to uh eradicate that. I go around the back and pour that into that gap as well. Yeah. So, I'll seal that up. Let's go and get rid of that plant. So happy with how it's looking. Now, how can I get to that plant? I have to go the other side. So this was where I was passing the uh the joist to my son and not communicating very well.
And uh yeah, so I'll have to deal with that as well. But at least the cabin hides it. I need to move these plants. I don't want it growing into the roof. Oh, it's up there. Look at that sneaky blighter. Maybe it's extra insulation. Put it on the top. Try and train it. But yeah, the plants are really taken to it already. So, I don't think it'd be long before that plant is growing over the roof. It's the next day, the very next day. And I think this might even be the final day of this log cabin build. It's It's behind me right now. I can't turn around cuz it's too good. So, it's too nice. Look at it. It's done. It's finally done. I I knew we'd have this day eventually, but to see something that was so rickety and broken and not solid to now look like this is breathtaking. Let me show you some of the features of the final touches that have been put on to this beautiful log cabin, garden, office, pod, workshop thing. This thing is absolutely gorgeous. I've changed my shirt, by the way. Let's go in and I'll I'll try and point out as many things that I love about this as possible. So, this is the room. This is a bit like a Grand Designs reveal, isn't it? I've got some creaky floorboards cuz we haven't finished nailing the floorboards down, you know, that enraged the uh the rest of the street. It got up to 40° in here yesterday, which is kind of why I'm doing this in the morning now. But oh my goodness, look at what the builder did with the with the window framing. So we got lovely proper framing around it. We've used the the furniture, the handles from the Billio Winchester, which I I think they're slightly twe. I don't quite like the brass look, but my son loves them, so we're going to stick with it. Um, you've got frame around the door, but the door frame, there was a wobble wobble on the Billio Winchester original front that we had. I was trying to explain this a few times where the gap between the window and the door was made up of little tiny versions of these. Actually, I can show you. The wall was built up using these blocks between the window and the door which meant that firstly they didn't actually get up to the roof height. There was a huge gap about 5 cm 5 to 7 cm. So I tried putting them at a wonky angle just to kind of spread them out and bite into the roof. But it meant that the whole wall between the window and the door just wobbled and it just and it didn't connect to the roof. I think it's a problem that's unique to this width of cabin. So, if you get a 4.5 m wide cabin, you're going to get these blocks and they're not good. They are really wo doing Casper. They're they're not good. And this is why we've had to get quite a financially substantial build to to have a solid wall for the door and window to lock onto. But this is absolutely solid and insulated as well. So there's a there's there's a proper wall with the original walls. I kind of like that we've got this wibbly wobbly design from the Billio Winchester where these these timbers warped in the hottest July ever recorded. Uh you can see we've got this quite original design. It is kind of medieval. Uh, which I kind of like, but look, I don't know if it comes across on camera, but it's not straight. This is straight and true. And the builder had has he's kind of carved into it. So, the frame the the walls kind of eat into the frame, which I I like. I think it looks original. We've got it on the other side as well. Look at that. Oh my goodness. Look at that wave. So, it's straight at the bottom, but where the original roof was nailed to the walls and it took the 38° heat, um you can see how much it warped and the distance between the the window frame and the wibbly wobbly wall which is straight at the bottom. So, it kind of bows out which I guess gives us extra room in the in the shack. So, that's good. I think we're calling it the shack. Um because I've got the happy hearts. The huts at the end of the garden. It it got dubbed the happy heart. That was the original building. That's where I make all my YouTube videos. We've also got some gaps where these have never met. And this was just where the the timbers were were twisted and they were they were like that on arrival. When the roof was nailed on, the wall was really twisted because it took heat at the front. the roof pinned it in place and the only way it could expand was to was to do its thing is to just twist and warp which is unfortunate because it means we've got these these gaps. So there is tongue still in the groove. I'm slightly worried about when it gets to winter apparently these cabins really do contract and the the logs fall even further into place. They're not nailed together. The instructions said don't nail them. I'm hoping that if they do fall that they'll they'll kind of lock in better as they fall into place, but I'm a bit worried because some people have shown these massive holes appearing in in their billio cabins. Do you know what? We managed to fix this. We managed to get someone to help us fix this. So, I'm kind of hoping that if anything bad does come up, then it's all fixable. We we'll manage to find a thing. We can't see the back of it. So if if there were holes on the walls there, maybe we could put some kind of cladding on the back just to keep it insulated and hole free. The first question anyone ever asks whenever whenever I show them a happy hut if they're male, the very first question, it's always the first question guaranteed is how do you get power to to the cabin? What have you done with the electricity? Um yesterday we had uh electrician in to connect the new hob, the new kitchen hob, our IKEA hob smashed. Um so we had an electrician in and I took him up the garden to to get a quote for this. And what we're thinking of doing getting two power outlets, having a socket in the lefthand corner there and another socket in the right hand corner there. and he suggested putting some kind of junction box at the top so that we can fit lighting so that I won't have wires training up the wall which is fantastic and all of that wiring can take place at the back so I won't actually see it. It will just come into the hut. We'll have armored cable and that armored cable already runs from the the hut to the garage. I don't know if we should do some extra fancy lighting. I don't know if it's going to be too much if we got some kind of LED strip underneath the barge boards here. Um, it it would look cute, I think, for about 5 minutes and then I think it might get a bit annoying. But I don't know. That's that's what you think. Say say in the comments how you would light this. My son wanted he just wants fluorescent strips. He wants it to be like a working workshop. I I I think that would be a shame, but uh you know, to make it look like some kind of sweat shop factory, but I guess that's kind of what this is going to be used for. So, as I step on the the creaking floorboards, the the only touch of interior design we've added is the IKEA Melon doormat and a Costco very industrial wipe your feet doormat because it does get uh muddy even on the few steps leading up to the the shack. The other thing I really absolutely love is the the lap board. I don't know what you'd call this. This kind of echoes and mirrors the the fencing boards that we had put in about a year and a half ago. I I've made a video about that. Um that was our brother-in-law made that. It still looks absolutely gorgeous. We have that echoed. The builder saw that and said, "Well, I could use that kind of stuff for for the cladding." So, he's gone he's gone horizontal on here. All I can compare it to, and this is this is a compliment. It sounds like it's uh it's a this it looks like one of the shacks in Frontier Town at Chestington. It looks like something that you'd get in a theme park, which I really, really love.
And the detail that we've got, um where the boards meet the edges and where the edges meet the roof. Um, he sworded the the joists at the front to give them this diagonal angle so they don't jut out. I was more than happy to have juty out joists, but he he kind of finessed them so they'd blend into the barge boards on the roof here. Let me let the footage speak for itself now. I'll try and show it to you from every angle with some music just to show you as much detail as possible because on the wide shots, I don't think it does it justice. it it just looks like how it should be. But so much thought has gone into uh every corner and every every part where the frame meets the wall. He's managed to scarf in really lovely detail and it's also so solid at the front. I can't tell you how wobbly and holy and insubstantial the front of this cabin was. And that is the side that's going to take the brunt of the weather. And it's also going to take the brunt of opening and closing the windows and the doors, every single entrance, the front of the shack just could not take uh when it was the Billio Winchester log cabin. I am very much calling this a dad delivers success. This has been a really difficult video to make because I didn't know that it was going to work out well. If you do hit the thumbs up button, it really helps me to keep these these videos going. And are you watching this video because you're thinking of a log cabin or a garden uh summer house or garden pod, garden office, workshop? Say hi in the comments. Tell me what you're thinking of doing and is this the kind of design that you're looking for. But as we move into the winter, I'll be making more videos like this. So, on screen now is the playlist for all of my cabin or I guess we're going to call it the shack, our log cabin videos.
