Studs Make More Than Doors

My greenhouse is in the final throes of completion with both roof sides and three walls fully glazed. I still have opening lites to go in and some flashing to the meeting spars but it gets hot in there even with one wall yet to glaze.

The weather definitely made me late for a planned end of February completion but I did my winter best and it is what it is. On Monday morning I took 5 1/2, 8-foot 2 1/2" by 1 1/2" studs and made a door frame and a four-lite door and made them in about five hours working flat out top chop the two twin M&Ts to the bottom rail and 8 regular versions. Admittedly it's only softwood but once painted and if maintained properly with a coat of paint every four years and some oil on the hinges periodically I expect it to give me a hundred years of annual use. That will make me around 170 years old so good value for £16 worth of wood.

From the time I transferred the door and frame from the garage workshop to the greenhouse, it took me 35 minutes to install the frame and hang the door with recessed hinges. This is real DIY. It goes fast when you know how and if anyone says they can do it faster with a power router, well, I don't care. I doubt that to be true and I had a total blast. You see DIY is as much the process as the finished product. I did plane the joint lines with a jack to make up the panels and I did plane the areas that could not be reached after assembly. Taking down any uneven surfaces with said plane left me with a random orbit sander to finish off the surfaces. I cannot express the pure joy at making a door and frame using traditional joinery and installing it the same day. Was it hard work? Of course it was - I always, always work hard. I like it, hard work, I love it. It's why my hair is still currently black on top with no dying and why I have muscles in my spit. Naah! Not really, but it is why I feel fit, strong and healthy and why I do what I do to improve and live life.

Can I explain what I feel at making such things? It's hard to do that because a freestanding greenhouse made with your own hands and with a hand-made mortise and tenoned door expresses a thousand words. That sounds like a good quote . . . I should coin that phrase!

My friends, Your well-being is my concern. I cannot explain the chemical release in your brain in terms of endorphins but I can say that for me it beats a workout in any gym you care to name a thousand times over and that is not just because it produces muscle that can be used rather than muscle that is just weight, but because I made a door from studs. I mean, after 56 years of making in wood, I just made a door from four studs and enjoyed it immensely. Can you understand? 56 years of six-day weeks working ten hours a day on average and I am still enjoying having a blast in the saddle doing what I love most. All I did was go to Home Base, buy four studs, and then another when I remembered outside that I needed a frame too, and I made a door and door frame and I loved the living of every minute. How can this be?

Be well! Go Make!