Lockdown Diversions

I need to apologies for what was a lack of variety and interesting posts during 2021 and into this year. With the prospect of ongoing lockdowns and restrictions I decided that a home based project might be a good idea and it kept me very occupied and away from sailing, kayaking, rowing etc.

Having been thinking about a garden room for a while and checked the permitted development regulations I started marking out the site and sinking the base acorss our sloping garden in April 2020.

WHo needs to go to the gym when you can get fit moving an area of soil 5 meter x 5 meter by a foot deep using just a shovel and wheel barrow. Mixing cement and leveling the concrete support piles was a daunting task which went surprisingly easy in the event.

Next up bolting up the floor timbers and joists, I probably checked the diagonals 20 times getting everything square and true, fine adjustment was made with a club hammer.

Friend Bruce kindly brough his nail gun over on a sunny June day and we had all 4 wall frames built and errected pretty much before lunch.

Probably the hardest job was setting the roof beams, two 10" x 2" x 5 meter lengths lifted and put in place on my own using a step ladder. Look away now health and safety. I took them up and down three times before getting the best alignment

After that the fitting the roof was breeze, I cut and fitted all the rafters in one day, think there are 22 of them in 8" x 2". Getting the 8'x4' sheets of ply onto the roof single handed was made easy by clamping on those 4'x'2's at the side and sliding them up using a 6:1 pulley. Worked just a well shed building as it did for the pyramids or stone hence.

A fun day in Jaunary digging the trench for the armoured cable, has to be 600mm deep, would have been more fun but the ground was so wet and soft there were a coule of times I thought the mini digger was going to fall over.

 Finishing the interior took along time, I probably went overboard with insulation and then painting took at least 4 coats for teh walls and 6 coats for the floor which took up a lot of evenings and weekends. 

The final big job was cladding using some lovely dougal fir supplied by Totton Timber who have deliverd all of teh wood and been really helpful.

The elctricity is in, the internet connected and the exterior lights have a remote control which is really cool. Below Mrs BB is also now installed in her new sewing room.

My friend Bruce came down to help for a day and a half, local builder Nathan spent the day nailing roof tiles for me, Clive fitted the double doors and Peter instaled the electrics, all the rest was done single handed by me. It was all really interesting, very enjoyable and a nice contrast to my normal line of work.