Build a seesaw rocker

Rock on!

DIY

This beautiful seesaw doesn’t take long to make, will provide hours of fun for the kids, and will be protected against the weather thanks to the Woodoc Water-Borne MARINE.

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What you need

Timber in the following dimensions (we used reclaimed pine): 2 x 1500mm x 175mm x 38mm (rocker top) 2 x 1200mm x 175mm x 38mm (rocker middle) 2 x 900mm x 175mm x 38mm (rocker bottom) 4 x 750mm x 90mm x 38mm (uprights) 2 x 600mm x 140mm x 38mm (footwell supports) 2 x 900mm x 175mm x 25mm (seats) 2 x 825mm x 140mm x 38mm (seat supports) 3 x 825mm x 175mm x 25mm (footwell) 2 x 825mm x 25mm dowel (handle bar) 8 x 6mm x 75mm coach screws 20 x 4mm x 50mm wood screws Methylated spirits 150-grit sandpaper 2 x 1L Woodoc Water-Borne MARINE 2 x 20ml Woodoc Colours, 1 in Full Moon and 1 in Teak

Steps

1. Start by cutting all the wood. For the rockers, lay them out on a flat surface in order from longest to shortest and with the centres aligned. Draw a curve on them, using a pencil and a piece of string 585cm long. Cut this curve with a jigsaw. Cut a curve into the ends of the top rockers, as shown, for decoration and to round the ends. 2. Cut one end of each upright into a semi-circle. In the centre of each semi-circle, drill a 25mm hole. Sand all the wood until smooth. Wipe down the wood with a cloth that has been dampened with methylated spirits. Leave to dry. 3. Open the Woodoc Water-Borne

MARINE and stir well with a flat spatula. Shake the Woodoc Colours (Full Moon) well and pour into the

Woodoc Water-Borne MARINE and stir well with a flat spatula. Also stir during application. Repeat with the other Woodoc MARINE and Woodoc

Colours (Teak). 4. Apply three coats of the tinted

Woodoc Water-Borne MARINE. Paint the seats, handle bar and footwell planks in Teak, and the rest in

Full Moon. Allow each coat to dry completely before applying the next coat. Sand lightly with fine sandpaper wool after the first and second coats have dried. Once sanded, wipe down the surface of the wood with a clean, dry cloth to remove all dust then wipe down the surface with a cloth dampened with methylated spirits

and allow to dry. Do not sand after the third coat has dried. 5. Screw one set of three rocker planks to two uprights and the footwell support, so that there is 330mm of the upright protruding from the top. (If you want to make the rockers stronger, you can glue the planks together or use a Kreg jig to join them.) The uprights must be flush with the footwell support plank, and equally spaced from the centre of the rockers. 6. Lay one rocker down flat. Hammer the handle bars so that they go onto the holes in the uprights. 7. Place the two seat supports in place at the ends of the top rocker plank.

Place the second rocker on top of the seat supports, and align the handle bars so that they go into the holes. You will probably need help with this. Drill 3mm pilot holes and attach the rocker to the seat supports with coach screws.

Repeat on the other end. 8. Flip the structure over and attach the other rocker to the seat supports, and hammer in the other ends of the handles. 9. Position the seesaw on its rockers, upright. Screw the three footwell planks to the two footwell supports. 10. Screw the seats to the rockers, flush with the seat supports.

Tools

Paintbrushes, cordless drill, driver bit, tape measure, clean rag, flat spatula, sander, jigsaw, string and pencil, 3mm drill bit, 25mm drill bit/ hole saw, mallet

The team

Editor Tanya Visser Assistant Editor Anna Celliers Managing Editor Wendy Moulton Process and Operations Manager Cindy May Wang Copy Editor Stephen Smith Design Gillian O’Donoghue, Wendy Moulton Photography and Styling Izolda van der Merwe Digital Platforms Manager Stephani Green Office Administrator Nokuthula Zuma Garden Shows Adele de Welzen Video and Digital Megan van der Merwe Bulb pics: ibulb.org Editorial Contributors Alice Spenser-Higgs, Anna Celliers, Ilona Thorndyke, Izolda van der Merwe, Madison Moulton, Stephen Smith, Tanya Visser, Wendy Moulton

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STOEP STORY

By Anna Celliers

Slowly turning into gardeners

Apparently the world gained 18.3 million new gardeners lately –it’s just my luck to have to play nursemaid to two of them!

When they first moved into their little house with its medium-sized yard there was great excitement and visions of a vegetable garden surrounded by a lush hedge of lavender. I remarked that they should maybe think of baby steps first, just trying to keep their potted Ficus alive. I could see this house-warming gift was standing with its roots in water in a dark living room, with the blinds drawn tightly all day long. I told them that the Ficus should be watered sparingly and should receive more light, upon which I was asked how much is ‘sparse watering’and how high should the light intensity be, in ‘lux’ . My answer was that thefinger-in-the-soil touch to check if it is wet or dry would work, and just rolling up the blinds would make all the difference. They did not agree, since the boundary wall was a low one made of cement slabs shaped like ox wagon wheels (a very retro style of fencing), which allowed every passer-by to look into the house, which is in a dodgy part of the suburb. This thought scared them. So the little Ficus was moved every day to give it light, which I warned against, as this neurotic plant is well-known for hating being trekked around. It predictably succumbed and is now in plant heaven.

Against all warnings that the chosen spot for a veggie garden might not be ideal without a lot of levelling, additional topsoil and proper soil conditioning in the form of a bulk load of compost, they spent weekends trying to rid the patch of weeds and attempting to dig over the cementhard clay soil. One of them had to visit a chiropractor for quite a while afterwards to get his back realigned.

I mentioned the word ‘patience’and dished out broad-spectrum herbicides to kill off the persistent weeds, but was told that they are not environmentally friendly. The vegetable seedlings that were planted gave a short-lived harvest of about three salad leaves, and the ailing lavenders died after a very heavy winter storm flooded the whole area.

I tried my best to be supportive, giving them a free copy of our gardening magazine every month, telling them that all they needed to know was in there. They had the temerity to tell me that our magazine (the only completely gardeningdedicated magazine still in print) seems a bit old-fashioned, maybe not catering to a younger, with-it crowd. While having this conversation, which got me very hot under the collar, I could see that they looked at me with a sort of pity, like they were watching a dying breed of old and muddy aunties who still cherish print.

All their gardening woes up to then had not discouraged them, but they kept preaching to me to become more technologically advanced and to use plant-identifying apps, as they are forever asking me about plants they see that I don’t know about. They do not get it: if I don’t know about it, it probably means that it is not available commercially in this country, or will not survive in the harsh climate of Strand in the Western Cape! I still do the old-fashioned thing and go out and see what local nurseries stock, read local gardening books, and often scour through the availability lists of wholesale plant growers. I also scoffed at them as most of the plants that I want to know I can already identify with my eyes closed, so I have never seen the use for any botanical apps.

What good does it do anyway, when your prized hoya is bleaker than a cadaver and smothered in white stuff? They hesitantly touched it and shivered, immediately plucking out their cell phones to take pictures to compare to similar goggas they could find on the internet, even though I told them it’s okay; I would just use a systemic insecticide as an eco-friendly soil drench, water the poor plant more, and even feed it. Maybe my gut feel would also tell me to move it to a different location where it can get better air circulation, rather than keeping it stuck in a dusty and hot corner near the braai. Reading and following a very informative article about hoyas in this very magazine would have prevented my plant from losing condition, I admonished myself quietly.

You have to applaud the discipline of the young, though, as they scrimped and saved to have a high-security fence installed around the property, which meant that they could now enjoy their small front garden in privacy and without being endangered or pestered by street criminals.

They put down gravel to create a dry succulent garden from all the cuttings I gave them, but had to pick it up again as they used plastic instead of weed matting underneath, as I told them to. In old gardens, you often find brick pathways edged with upright bricks that were placed on their sides to create a diamond pattern, which keeps the pathway (painted in either red or green stoep paint) sturdy. My advice was to leave the upright bricks, but to paint them charcoal and live with it until they can afford a modern pathway. Aikôna! The edge was dug up, and the pathway of course disintegrated… So I redrew the garden plan, getting rid of the bloody pathway altogether, and the bricks were carted away.

The old weed-infested lawn, which was on a level much higher than curvy old borders containing nothing but an ancient shrub or two and a battling pear tree (which they planted when they moved in), was dug up to soon be replaced with new instant lawn sods. I was WhatsApped pictures of the bare soil, and then received a phone call to find out what to do next.

“Compost, ”I shouted, “and lots of it!” Many more phone calls later, and after multiple complaints about compost being so expensive, I broke through a barrier and a bulk load was delivered after me finding a supplier. After being spread and levelled, it had to be raked up again as I could see the layer of compost was way too thick to be under the lawn and not thick enough for my liking in the areas demarcated for new planting beds. I was asked to recommend plants and referred them to an article I recently wrote about resilient perennials that can cope with the summer heat and wind, and which would not require a lot of water once established. Although it was not said to my face, I heard via the grapevine that they are not really partial to my suggestions, although they did fall in love with a modern hybrid of the tough old Mexican sage …

The latest in this saga are daily phone calls to enquire whether I think their new lawn has ‘taken’yet, and also to tell me that the two-year old pincushion (planted on a whim), which I told them to leave well alone and not to dig up and move as fynbos don’t like their roots to be disturbed, has apparently produced two new leaves and is still greenish. The question they actually wanted an answered was whether I thought it would survive its ordeal. How the dickens would I know?

You can build a garden in a day, but there is more pleasure in doing it over years…

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