So yeah, it may lack accurate right angles in places but it stands as firm as a very firm thing, and the occupants don't notice our construction misdemeanours so all is fine and dandy.
The occupants are as small as the house, which arrived in a large, heavy container made of heavy grade cardboard, not steel, and the "dwelling-to-be" comprised of about 40 pieces of pre-cut fine timber.
And there were bags of screws and an instruction-for-construction booklet which was actually very good.
For with some of these DIY-kit things, the instructions verge on bewildering.
This fine pine kit was an exception and when Dazza and I noted the estimated construction time of 90 minutes we hit the ground running.
And we built the little playhouse thing in 54 minutes, which was remarkable given we stuffed up screwing in structural bearer things…we misjudged their positioning so when we screwed them on, the screws emerged through the outer walls.
"I've only had the one," I grizzled to my "boss" whilst putting the can down and re-siting the strut settings.
For when I had to remove the errant eight screws, I had to push a little button on the drill's housing from the left to the right.
And it worked, for they came out effortlessly.
And so ... yes, it came to pass ... that I forgot to push it back when it came to drilling the first of the new strut-thing locations and the screw flew off.
All I could say was "the drill's not working properly".
Dazza summed my excuse up with five words.
"Give the ... thing here."
I'll leave out the fifth word.
He sorted it.
"I could have done that if the drill was working properly," I huffed.
"Another can?" Dazza chirpily asked.
"Just the one," I sniffed.
Then my daughter emerged on the work site, in the driveway by the house, and said something like "oh it looks great ... so no-one screwed up then?"
"Only to a degree," I mumbled, looking at the screw drill and vowing silently to listen to the owner's instructions and accordingly do what I was told.
But I'll never admit that, and certainly not in print ... hang on.
However (I love that word because it effectively means you can get a second verbal chance on your own conditions), at the end of the day, we built a house.
And until the gale force westerly winds arrive in October it will stand tall and firm and our little grandson and his chums will use it as their playtime lair.
"We built that, matey," I'll say to Dazza as the roof tumbles gracefully down the street in the ferocious wind.
"Yep," he'll answer with pride.
Another can?" he'll ask.
"Oh, just the one ," I shall add with a nod of pride at a job, sort of, well done.
• Roger Moroney is an award-winning journalist and observer of the slightly off-centre.
