It's that DIY time again.

Anything rather than decorate the hall. After all, it is only twenty years or so since it was last done.

And this particular bit of DIY was in response to an allegation that the rags, towels, foam and what have you which wrap up the various pipes coming out of the side of our house to protect them from the winter frosts were unsightly.

There are quite a lot of pipes, covering both the downstairs facilities and the kitchen, including the all important mains water supply (for some reason outside rather than inside. Flagrant breach of building regulations), and wrapping them up neatly was beyond me. But a substantial house over the whole, to hide the insulating rags from tidy eyes was much more up my street.

The core of the pipe house is the front frame, two by two from the demolished garden shed (see, for example, 27th May), cunningly cross halved together for rigidity and strength, and only marred by the fact that the upper rail was quite badly twisted. But this did at least provide an opportunity to deploy one of my sash cramps to pull up a joint before screwing it into place, the first such opportunity for a while. Frame positioned on the wall by three nine by one buttresses made from the finest North London mahogany, one of which is just visible on the right of the illustration. The left and right hand buttresses fixed to the wall with brass wall plates, one of which is also just visible.

Not the right sort of wall plate, this being the slot screw variety, such as used to be used to hang my trophy ram's head on the wall of the front room, but Robert Dyas of Epsom did not have the other sort. And the Screwfix (http://www.screwfix.com/jsp/container.jsp) catalogue did not seem to understand what I meant by wall plate at all, although I dare say they do sell the things, perhaps by the hundred, which would not be much help either.

Front and top tongue and groove, also from the shed. Top two planks of the front screwed on to allow removal and entry from time to time. Hard to get light timber of this sort off in one piece when it is nailed on. Brass (or something yellow) cross head screw heads visible if you click to magnify. I discovered at this point that the concrete surround to the drain, bottom middle front, while very substantial in itself, was not very substantially fixed to its substrate. But hopefully this does not matter too much; it is not as if water stands in the thing.

Next step is to source some packing peanuts. These will be loosely packed in dustbin bags and wrapped around the pipes. Meanwhile, just stand back and admire.