2014 is another year which has flown by in a whirl of roadtrips, travel and DIY. Things didn’t quite go as per the 2014 plans I blogged about on the first of January – work got in the way out our European roadtrip and the dining room didn’t get finished until about the twenty third of December.
As is becoming common, the year started with a trip to Autosport International, this year was even better than usual as it was combined with a Pistonheads Sunday Service, which added an extra dimension to it. Later in January I also had my first visit to Race Retro, another local motorsport show.
March was the start of my travels, with an ace roadtrip to North Wales and Chester in the MR2, then the first of my trips to Japan for work. The Pistonheads Sunday Service at Morgan Cars was my favourite of the year, even if a puncture the previous day meant that I turned up in Jen’s Fiat 500. I enjoyed the tour so much I took my Dad back on his 60th birthday.
May was the start of our big DIY project for the year – building my garage! Which continued for most of the summer, with distractions for Coventry Motofest, Le Mans (which I didn’t get around to blogging about) and a trip to Copenhagen with Jen.
In September I went back to Japan for business, but more importantly I spent a week in Croyde with Jen and asked her to marry me! Fortunately she said yes!
The last three months of the year were spent renovating the dining room, as we were hosting Christmas dinner for my family and enjoying my new hobby – mountain biking! The latter of which is why this post was written whilst waiting at Walsgrave hospital A&E department, thankfully due to a dog bite, rather than any failed extreme manoeuvres on my part.
Since my last update on the garage build I have managed to make some progress in the gaps between work and holidays. The main task was to empty the temporary garage, aka the dining room, which needs to be plastered and redecorated before Christmas. This involved refurbishing Jen’s Granddad’s workbench (which we are sure he acquired from the Alvis factory, where he worked), erecting shelving and having a thorough sort out of everything we had kept from the old garage. Although I still need to sort out tools, as I have inherited my Dad’s collection to join Jen’s granddad’s and my own – which seems like a good excuse to get a shiny new toolbox! Now that the garage is full of car and tools etc I’ve upped the security with better locks and an alarm.
The shed isn’t strictly related to the garage build, but as one of the most important requirements was that the garage would be for car stuff only, we needed a shed for everything else.
The garage is finally ready to park a car in! This picture is actually a few weeks old, but life has been a bit hectic recently, so I’m playing catch up on the blog. A few days after 
The garage is almost finished! The last slabs for the path have been laid, along with the shed base and the garage floor. When the concrete floor is dry, the builder needs to build some supporting pillars for the door and then he is finished and we can start with the remaining jobs – the interior fit out, getting the garage door and electrics installed etc.
I didn’t post yesterday, as the visually there wasn’t much different from 
The brickwork for the walls is now complete and work on the roof has started. The wall plates and joists have been fitted and the boarding is about half done. The roofer will finish off the roof on Tuesday and the window and personnel door will be fitted on Wednesday. Work has also started on the path down the side of the garage and the base for the shed. The next step is to fit the steel lintel above what will be the garage door.