New Garage

We stopped for a rest over Xmas, and I ended up buying another old bike. Unfortunately there wasn't really any room for it in the existing garage, which spurred me into starting on the new garage.

The new garage would be built as a lean to on the side of the house and would need to look right with the existing stone work to the front of the house. Initially I considered building the front elevation in dressed stone but this would have been very expensive and I wasn't sure whether my building skills would do justice to the materials. Eventually we decided on a single skin blockwork construction with york stone quoins and archway.

We drew up some plans, go them approved by building control and I made a start.
The first job was setting out and getting a 800mm deep foundation trench dug. I started out doing this by hand but the ground was too compacted so I hired a digger and driver who completed it within a morning. Once filled with a few cubic metres of concrete I was able to start laying the blockwork.

Once the joists were fixed a layer of breathable membrane was installed and fixed by slate batten. I installed two large velux windows and then slated the roof. Once watertight I installed electrics and the electric roller shutter door I'd bought a few months before on Ebay. Once the lights were in I knocked through to the house and installed a fire door for access to the garage.

August 2007 and it's finally rendered and I've painted it. I've also laid york stone flags round the side of the garage and built a planter from railway sleepers. It's so heavy two people can barely carry it!

That's pretty much it for now, there's some minor internal work to do like the third bathroom but I'll get on with that over winter.