Ramping it up

There's old stock, and there's new stock.  My latest project is to build an access ramp, decking-style, at the front of my in-laws' bungalow.  This is designed to make life easier for my father-in-law, who is beginning to struggle with steps, and for my brother-in-law who, since his stroke, needs a ramped access on his visits to Devon.

It has to be quite a sturdy piece of joinery, meeting regulations on the gradient (no more than 1 in 12) and width (minimum 900mm), so a visit to Travis Perkins was needed to bring the materials in.  This was 10 days ago, and snow was still lying in the woodyard, so it wasn't the most straightforward of tasks.

I've again been using the lower barn to do the construction work, with sections screwed together and newel posts bolted on with stainless steel bolts. I've been pushing my power tools close to their limits, not least because they don't like sawing and drilling damp timber. I've also been testing my not-too-good-in-the-third-dimension design capability.  The idea is to check that everything goes together, then dismantle it, take it Devon on Friday evening on the trailer, and build it again in situ over the weekend.  I have left the buying of the decking boards for a Saturday morning visit to TP in Okehampton as I've got more than enough weight to trundle down the M6 and M5.

There are one or two tricky bits (a gate and steps for those who don't want to use the full ramp, for instance) so I'm hoping the measurements I took on my last visit aren't too far out.

Here's what it looks like at present - I'll blog again with pictures next week.