The build
… That whenever I even think of going outside and doing some shed that it immediately P*SSES DOWN! grr.
I love Kingspan. It is the best building material in the world bar none. If I could build a house out of just kingspan I would. If I ever find myself in the fortunate position to actually do a proper grand design it’s gonna be plywood and kingspan – just huge.
I hate doing electrics at the best of times. I always underestimate the time it will take, but this time I really loused it up. Thinking safety I started wiring the whole shed with 30a cable, despite only having 20A junction boxes… there was just no way the big fat wires were going into the skinny little wire clamps… after 2 and a half hours I started to get really frustrated and actually considered soldering the buggers together. At which point I took a break… Never, ever allow yourself to get frustrated with electrics. I then calmly pulled the wire out and replaced the lighting section with proper lighting cable. Got the whole loom in within 15 minutes. Quite happy with armoured cable, isolation breakers and switching. P*ssed off at the time lost though… Was hoping to get the outside wall on today, gonna have to wait for Friday now.
it really doesn't look like much - but that was the most horrible thing I've ever done.
looking like a shed (a big shed, but definitely a shed)
This was yesterday evening – couldn’t stop to post then coz I was convinced I had to get the roof on before the deluge this morning…
Patio door just standing there - I keep walking through it expecting a Narnia/Doctor Who experience...
I’m loving the clean lines of the wood against the door – plus it really defines the room – I’m getting quite excited about sitting in there. I love the statement it makes just standing there by itself… Plus it shows the strength of the fence-post footers – those doors are HEAVY!
oo-err it's a big one
Fixed the main support posts into the walls – waiting an hour for my drill battery to recharge between each post… Agh! Still, the time lost allowed me to lay the kinsgpan and DPC to the floor. Looking at the plywood laid down (and smelling the wood as I moved it) I’ve decided to leave the plywood floor and walls as they are – the wood has a fabulous finish – very “shed-like”… I reckon plasterboarding it would ruin the ambience – so I may have 8 sheets of plasterboard if anybody’s interested?
It's gonna be a reasonable sized room
It’s amazing how a single course of bricks defines the space. The idea of the “wall” is to keep a little distance between the base of the plywood walls and the floor so as to minimize water seeping up. (There will be a damp-proof membrane over the bricks). Once they were down I spent too much time this afternoon sitting on an imaginary chair, at an imaginary desk now I can actually picture how big the room’s gonna be. Speaking of the bricks – how easy is that? (Wouldn’t want to lay another course on top though).
Unfortunately I’m now utterly crippled with my back after carrrying the old shed out of the yard brick-by-brick into my car to the tip and into a big old skip… Radox, paracetamol and lots of wine says I’ll be back tomorrow to build walls.
Oh! – don’t use Hippo Bags for anything serious – they’re TINY! – got about half the wall from the old shed in one and they want to charge me the thick end of £70 to take it away… B*ll*cks to that, I’ll take the contents down the tip – can only be two car-loads.
God that was hard work!
Well, numerous barrow-loads of rubble and 3 trips to the tip later the old shed has gone!
OK – thought it might be a good idea to sketch out what I plan to be doing this week:
Monday: Fit post holders to trench and pour concrete
Tuesday: Move contents of shed out and demolish
Wednesday: Kingspan arrives (hopefully) start building wall pieces
Thursday: Construction
Friday: Construction
Saturday: Roof on?
Sunday: felt roof, fit windows & shutter
