The walkway

It's been an interesting week in the world of island construction. I posted a request for quotes on the brabyggare.se website and three replies came in.

I'd rate them on a Goldilocks scale- one was from a big company replying with a form letter, another was a small firm, and the last seemed to be an individual. (The Swedish word for carpenter is snickare and companies who do wood-working and joinery are snickeri.)

The website listed decent references for all three, but I would have rather gone with someone recommended by Janne or Wille. However, they couldn't find anyone able to build before we're there in June. I can understand why; everyone wants to go out to their finished homes for midsummer. The weather really isn't reliable until perhaps mid-April (there's still a lot of snow on Aspö as of this writing). That leaves, at best, an eight-week window of building opportunity. Naturally, builders are in great demand during that time. I had hoped that planning the work last year with Jesper would have made sure I was scheduled, but things didn't work out for various reasons.

Rather than trying to get the walkway done with someone over the internet (and in Swedish), I've decided to wait and have it built later in the summer. The pool of available snickare will be a lot larger, and I should be able to talk in more detail with Janne about just what I should be asking for. All I have now is my little sketch which, for all I know, may be wholly inadequate. And who knows, maybe I'll do some of the work myself!!

I'm disappointed it won't be done for our summer holiday, but keeping the big picture in mind, it will be best to have it designed properly and built to last many years.