I undertook a number of significant DIY projects in 2016. The first of these was to build a set of shelves for our shoes (well, mostly Gatti's shoes) which was intended to live in the stairway outside our flat. Several of our neighbours already had sizeable shoe racks outside their door, but ours was the biggest! The construction work was closely supervised by Tine, of course.
Unfortunately the new shoe rack had only been in service for a couple of months before the Genossenschaft (housing cooperative) issued a decree banning all articles of this nature from the stairwells of their properties.
This measure was taken at the insistence of the landlord's insurers because the items were flammable and represented a fire risk. They could also impede escape routes and emergency service access in the event of a fire breaking out. As a result, we now have a large shoe rack inside our flat!
My next project of note was to install a new Grillkamin (barbecue) in the garden. This item - the "Tucson" Grillkamin - was purchased in April from Bauhaus (a local DIY store). It consisted of a number of preformed concrete sections that had to be cemented together using special heat-resistant mortar, after wich it needed several coats of special heat-resistant paint.
The new barbecue was intended to replace the small metal barbecues we had been using previously, which tended to rust quickly. We have made extensive use of it over the years, and despite our subsequent acquisition of a somewhat more sophisticated portable barbecue, it still stands in our garden and sees occasional use when we just want to cook a few sausages!
In May 2016 I decided to construct a proper workbench and toolrack in the cellar, together with decent lighting and accessible power outlets. This was achieved mostly using materials I already had in the cellar, and a redundant chest of drawers from our house in Plymouth that had seen better days, but which now gained a new lease of life.
Having a place for all my tools is of particular importance to me because I tend to forget where I have placed (or misplaced) things from one moment to the next!