Bed Building Continued

Yesterday, I managed to accomplish quite a bit after the rain stopped. I began by cutting the timbers for the first layer and laying them out on the ground. I then checked to see if the timbers were level. They, of course, weren't level because that would be too easy. I dug a small trench with a pick and a hoe so that the one high corner is level enough for me to be happy with it. Once that was out of the way, adding layers was a simple matter of cutting them and placing them. With the digging, I was worn out after the first two layers.


Then it rained again last night....


So, today, I started the day off by waiting for everything to dry out a bit. We've had some rough storms over the last couple of days. Luckily, the most I've had fall is a couple of branches. Once the day moved on a bit, I started cutting and adding the last two layers of the first bed.


Once I finished cutting and laying out the timbers, I made sure that they were lined up correctly, checking them with a level. Then I prepared to drill through.





After pre-drilling a hole, I pounded a 24-inch long section of rebar through the 12-inches of timber using a three-pound sledge.






I then repeated the process twice more on the same corner. Of course, it can't be quite as simple as that, can it? Of course not: I had to re-align the timbers after the vibrations from the hammer knocked them out of place. But that was the only trick to it...


Currently, I'm on a dinner and blogging break. As it stands now, I have all of the timbers for the shallow bed cut and laid out and one corner secured with rebar.