Whilst I was at Le Mans (blog to follow seen) the builders made good progress, with three sides now at full height. Due to the slight slope of the garden the garage looks higher than I was expecting, but my plans were based on the garden being flat.
We are still on schedule for the roof to be fitted this week, at which point it will start to feel more like a garage.
It has been a busy day on the 119 project!
The builders have built 2 more corners and made good progress on the left wall, and the hardcore for under the floor has been delivered (the blue damp proof membrane shows what will be the eventual floor height). They had an extra guy working with them today, so progress was good.
The electricians were also on site, until 18:30 when I got home, I’d bumped into them at my office at 10:00 and they said this was their next job – they were still here when I got home at 18:30, which was good going. They were installing trunking for the electric cable and network cable, as they had some water pipe in the van already, they ran that just in case. They had to drill through from the outside loo and the bricks were putting up a good fight, when I got home there was a big pile of empty drill batteries, showing that the outside loo is literally built like a brick shithouse!
The builders have made good progress, all the walls have been complete to floor level with engineering bricks and they have started building up the main walls. The floor is due to be laid early next week.
After day three was rained off, the builders were able to get some bricks laid. With 2 walls and the start of the third and fourth I can see exactly how big the garage is going to be – and it looks like there will be plenty of room to work in there!
We have foundations! When I got home this evening there was a large pile of bricks on the street outside, I was also surprised to see the guys still working, it turned out the concrete had arrived late, so they were here until gone 18:30 getting the foundations finished.
Assuming the rain holds off they are going to start laying bricks tomorrow!
After a slowish start this morning, waiting for the skip and digger to be delivered the guys have made good progress. When I left for the office at lunch time, most of the concrete slab was still intact.
The plan for the next few days is that the bricks are going to be delivered tomorrow (Tuesday) and the electrician will be fitting the armoured cable and ducting on Wednesday.
The preparation for the garage build is complete, over the last few weeks since my last post, we have been busy – two skips have been filled with the garage and its contents, one run to the tip, cleared the route for a trench (for the electrics), built a raised bed and filled it with topsoil from the old vegetable plot (which will become a path when the new garage is built). The biggest job was building the raised bed, although I did get some help from Jen:
We used a custom kit from Woodblocx, which consists of pre cut and drilled treated sleepers and plastic pegs to hold them together. I was really impressed with them, although it wasn’t quite as easy as building with Lego, as I had been expecting – the pegs took a fair amount of hammering to fit, then the next layer of wood also needed a lot of hammering to fit into the pegs, but the end result is solid. We filled the bed with ten wheelbarrows of soil from the old vegetable plot at the top of the garden, which we sieved before adding to the bed. We replanted the strawberries, rosemary and thyme, which were in the old bed and added oregano, three different varieties of chilli plant and leeks, which I’ve grown from seed.
The builders and electrician are arriving at 08:30 tomorrow to start work, of course I’ll regularly update the blog with progress.
The old garage has gone! Yesterday, along with a few friends I dismantled the old wooden garage to make space for the new garage. I think it actually took longer to clear out the garage than it did to demolish it! There’s now just a lodge pile of wood at the bottom of the garden, so the next job is to get a skip (now that there’s space for one!) to get rid of wood etc.
In a bit of a change from my normal subjects of cars and travel, I’m going be posting about my garage build project. As some of you may know Jen and I have been renovating our house – aka the 119 Project for a few years, but now we have got to the really interesting bit, for me anyway – the garage build! There will be plenty of photographs going up on my 119 Project Flickr album, but I’m also going to add some word on here for the garage build part.
The plan is to replace the old wooden garage, which isn’t wide enough for a modern car, with a large single brick build garage, where I can relax and work on my MR2/whatever car I have. This will not be a garage just for storing junk, we will have a shed for that!
The old garage is being demolished tomorrow, so watch this space for updates!
Happy new year!
My 2014 has started off quietly, with bacon sandwiches, a wet drive out in the MR2 to Stratford, homemade Tartes Flambees and the new episode of Sherlock. Even though I had my camera with me most of the day, the rainy selfie above is the only picture I took – here’s hoping for better weather the rest of the year!
The rest of 2014 is already looking really busy, especially with work on the 119 project, before September we need to finish the living room, build my dream garage and completely refurbish the dining room. If you are interested,the best place to see how it is progressing is on my 119 project set on Flickr.
Aside from DIY I’ve got some exciting projects at work, but even more exciting that that Jen and I have got a two week European roadtrip planned, well, we know we’ll include the Monaco Historic Grand Prix, but have got a lot more work to do before we set of in May! As if one European roadtrip isn’t enough I will also be taking the MR2 to Le Mans in June for the 24 hour race with my Dad. Maybe I should have bought a more sensible car last year… In its defence, the MR2 should be perfect for my other 2014 goal – getting back into track days, although I think I will have to wait until the second half of the year for that.
My resolution for 2014 is to try to blog more, I’ve got plenty of photos left to sort out from 2013 and amongst all the work and DIY I’m sure I will manage to fit in some adventures, a guy has to prioritise, right?