Brown stuff finished - with costs

Phew. 

Got the rest of the wood. What have I let myself in for?

Felt as if it took half an hour to mark up all the bundles ready for cutting into 3. Then the best part of an hour to do the actual chopping.

Obvs the pillars are all at different positions, so the fence sections are of different widths. In order to get the 150mm (aka 6") slats evenly spaced with roughly 75mm (aka 3") gaps, clearly the only answer was to create a spreadsheet.

Knowing that each slat is 150mm and the target gap is around 75mm, I calculated the number of slat/gap pairs would fit in the space available, then rounded off the resulting number to the nearest integer number. Then I calculated the gap that would result from that number of 150mm slats evenly spaced, then finally the distance of the edge of each slat from the starting position.

I then measured the widths of each of the 8 sections, dialed it into the spreadsheet and printed out the table of coordinates. Then it another apparent half hour to mark out the positions of the slats on masking tape stuck on the horizontals. 

With 2 decking screws per slat, I calculated that I'd need 256 screws. The box of Spax stainless steel decking screws contained a nominal 250 screws. I guessed they would need to guarantee at least 250 would be shipped - but how many extras would they give me? Answer - 5, so I only needed to find a single extra screw to finish the job. The screw gods smiled on me.

Job done. Yes, I had a few left over. The Stupid Fat Bloke had a rush of blood at the timber merchant and brought home too many. And natch I didn't count them up before chopping them up, so I can't take the extras back. Ho hum.

And the cost, overlooking my free labour and not including the surplus planks:

So my estimate of £500 looks eerily on the money.

Job done.