Isambard Kingdom Brunel — what an engineer. This bloke didn’t design his way into the history books with just one innovation, or even two — he just kept coming up with bold new material: tunnels, steel ships, suspension bridges. All brilliantly conceived and executed with due consideration of function driving form and such.
It would be wonderful to bring a Brunel-esque touch to the projects I undertake around here, but that’s not to be — there’s a regrettable tendency to over-engineer these things, which is a direct consequence of over-thinking them, I reckon.
You’ll recall that the Federation style, of which Corner Cottage is an exemplar, requires a prominent roof-line, ideally adorned with finials to draw the eye upward. Also that of the four finials our particular rooves require, three had fallen down in the last year or so, victims of stormy winds.
It’s bothered me every time my eyes have been drawn, if not upwards, then unsatisfyingly to those uncrowned gables. There were a couple of decent photo opportunities the other evening, but all I could see was the missing finials – that is, the places where the finials were not. It was like looking at a Rolls Royce without its Spirit of Ecstasy, or the Mona Lisa without her simper. It could not be allowed to stand.
The only obstacle between finial satisfaction and continued visual disruption was the means to anchor the finials back in their spots in a more secure manner than previously. The role was previously played by a ridiculously short multi-grooved dowel, viz:
This is clearly inadequate to anchor the finial against the leverage exerted as the wind blew on the full length of the finial. My task was to find a dowel much longer and deepen the sockets to accommodate it. The problem was finding a dowel of the right diameter. Not a difficult task, you’d think, but the local building supply only had the 16mm variety — and it was in 2-metre lengths, which posed an amusing challenge to returning it home on my bicycle. This was accomplished medieval lance-style, in a poor parody of Don Quixote seeking a windmill.
This dowel was way too thick for the purpose, and I was compelled to whittle it into a shape that would fit. The cheap hand drill I’d bought didn’t help — it held the bit off-centre, creating oval holes which demanded an oval dowel. This was a trial-and-error process, complicated by the need to clamber up a ladder over and again to test the fit. Then I sawed a slot in it so it would flex inward, as well as making room for more glue, thus strengthening the joint.
At last this was of the proportions to fit snugly, aided by liberal doses of a noxious, stringy and horrible-looking adhesive called Liquid Nails. If it looks a bit skew to you, that’s just distortion from my wide-angle lens, OK?
That was the finial for the shed — I mean ‘studio’. Thence to the main house, which had two soldiers down on the northern prospect. I confess that some time elapsed between the first restoration and this one, during which I located the correct 10mm dowel on a jaunt into Canberra and bore it home in the car like a normal person.
This meant the drilling could be done with a nice, new, sharp carpentry bit in a nice, powerful, effort-free electric drill. The conditions were perfect for over-engineering, and it being a sunny afternoon, I was up for the job. The dowels were cut to length, then scored lightly to provide more grip for the Liquid Nails. Then genius intervened: instead of a mere slot in the end, how about a slot with a wedge, which would cause the dowel to expand when driven home, thus creating a solid joint? I call this the Expand-O-Matic.
For the second finial, another brilliant wheeze suggested itself. Why not drill a hole at a slant from the base of the thing, such that it intersects with the main shaft, thus creating a route for another dowel to act as a locking device? And so it was done. This is the Lock-O-Matic.
If you think that thinner dowel looks like a matchstick, you’d be right. Oh, and I went a bit mad with the drill, creating a few more passages for that sweet, sweet Liquid Nails. With the locking dowel inserted and trimmed flush, it was time for the final finial installation.
In the interests of full disclosure, I should mention that one of the factors driving all this faffing about was my fear of heights. Alongside abnormally small feet, I am afflicted with a phenomenon called mono vision, which means the world as I perceive it lacks depth — which makes catching a ball or descending a staircase an exercise in guesstimation. Looking down from a height, however modest, invokes a sickly sense of vertigo. So yes, I had rather been putting off going up the ladder and onto the roof — or rather, coming down having previously ascended.
Once up there, though, it wasn’t so bad. The task at hand took over and, having dragged an extension cable through the bedroom window, I made short work of drilling the holes. And by the way, it’s amazing what you see while you’re on the roof: two runners went by, not to mention a rather lovely Jaguar XK120 in good nick. I had chats with two neighbours, one just passing the time of day and the other a dialogue about invasive tree species.
Anyway, those two roofline features went in quite sweetly and it wasn’t long before descending the ladder loomed. As this was likely to be an ungainly and undignified manouevre, I waited until the streets were clear before lumbering down again.
OK, so there we have it: the cottage has regained its modest crowning features and no longer irks the questing eye. Our vision is drawn upwards in a satisfying manner as we look fondly on our home; harmony is restored; the Federation Commissar is content. And with all that over-engineering, those finials will be up there for the next generation or so. On reflection, I don’t think Izzy Brunel would disapprove.