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House Work
Thought i'd join in with the odd the DIY thread, so here's ny little house/DIY thread won't be as impressive as the likes of IT's or 47p2's build threads but some might find it interesting.
Bought our first house in January this year after being together for 8 years. From then to now we've got married, bought two new (to us) cars as ours decided kill their gearboxes and now we are preparing for the thread of redundancy from the wife's job and mine has been on going for long its been the norm. Because of the above, we've not been able to do what we would like to do on the house and had to do what we can with what we got. Its not to bad because I'm enjoying doing it my self, the learning along the way is good and its a lot more satisfying than paying someone to do. The house. Its a 3 Semi, Driveway (not really usable), garage, front and back garden. The drive way is a little bit steep and tight with the A4 on it. I'm not willing to attempt putting the A8 on it. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...psc6bd4d41.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ps9ccaefbd.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ps2d263c2b.jpg I hope to widen the driveway to make it more usable. We are still discussing which way we want the garage to face at the bottom of the garden. Up the garden with the a long drive way down one side or into the lane. I like the long drive way one for more parking and more security. |
The back garden on this house is massive.
Its something like 100 feet long and 30 feet wide. Which is great for the dogs. They have loads of room to run, play and fight each other (play fighting only). But it also has a really long bush down one side and a old hickering fence thing on the right. The younger dog is happy in the garden and don't really want to wander away to much but the else dog is a pain in the ass. If there's a hole, gap or a chance for him to explore a neighbours garden he would take it. Never does any harm, just happy to walk around and see what they got that we don't. We've attempted to block up any holes and potential gaps but he keeps finding them or making. The week after the wedding we decided a enough is enough and decided to get it sorted out properly. The bush on the left is nice and dense at the top but gappy at the bottom. We tried filling the gaps in with fence but he would just break through it. I'm not a fan of the hedge. It was starting to grow in to the garden and it would get in the way at the lower section. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...psz6he44jc.jpg We removed the bush, removed any old metal fencing from the conceret posts. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...psatf50r3o.jpg Went to a local farm supply centre to pick up 25 metres of 4foot high chain link fence. I wanted green PVC coated fence but they only had the galvanized fence. Its ok, does the job but I'm not a fan of the look. We will plant some new plants and move some plants to the border in a hope to hide the fence. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...psmx9ykfce.jpg The fence is up and he's not gotten out. Need to remove the old stumps from the bush, clean up the border (I think that's what its called) and put some new plants down. The garden for now will have to wait till autumn when the plants die back a bit and we can start removing and cutting stuff down. The lavender bushes need to go one weekend because the wife is allergic to them. It wont be pretty when they are gone. There's ten of them, so ten big gaps in the garden. The fig bush/tree/plant needs to go, that's taking over the space at the back of the garage and I want that for water buts. |
When we looked at the house the box room has a single bed and a bedside table in it.
It was ok as a guest room but we......I, needed the space for other things. Since we moved in its been a dumping ground for anything that should be in the house with no idea where to put. The main thing that was taking up space and having to be stacked in a way to stop it from falling over or damaged was mass of Star Trek folders I collected when I was in my Teens. Being a bit of a hoarder and sentimental fool, I could not bring myself to part with them. So I decided to build a shelf for them in the box room. With box rooms being box rooms and lacking space, I did not want them to take valuable wall space. I thought about putting them above the door. There's enough room for a shelf and the self I like is the correct depth. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ps7532f907.jpg This was a good idea at first, till I start loading it up with folders. This was a learning curve for me. Floating shelves can't hold the amount of paper I wanted it to hold. So I made up a suspension bracket on one side and used a bit of word on the other side to keep up. You can see the block of wood holding it up on the left (Still needs painting). http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ps46358936.jpg The suspension bracket thingy I made for the other side. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ps261c4167.jpg As you can see from the 2nd picture, I made a slight calculation error with the size that I needed. And one folder is left over. With the folders out of the way, its time to build a desk for the computer and my soldering kit. I wanted the desk to be used for the PC, Soldering and general office duties. I did not want legs in the way taking up space, so I wanted to use the whole espance of the back wall. That gave me space, light from the window and left the rest of the room open. This raised one issue or two. Strength being the main one. I did not think normal desktops would support the load that might end up on it and I did not like the look of them. I took a trip to B&Q and see what they got. They had an offer on kitchen worktops. Something like £40 for a full length worktop and they had one in a colour I liked. Brilliant, bought it and took it home with me. Despite the fact that the kitchen worktop is thicker than most of the other worktops I would have used I was still paranoid of it holding up. First off, the side supports. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...psqtj1jsxt.jpg I made a gallows bracket. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...psuhymlsi2.jpg Mounted the worktop on. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ps7yyzjoje.jpg with the worktop screwed down, power cables ran. It was time to put my kit on. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...pszjqxzqgr.jpg Got a couple of little bits left to do in the box room but for now its useable and removed some more boxes from the floor. |
Front room is a bit of a odd shape I think.
It has a fireplace in the middle which is I fine. I like a proper fire but it has the alcoves either side and bay window. Its been hard to know what to do with it and we are still debating and trying to work it out. We ordered a new sofa and chair for the room and I got some bits to move from the front room to the back room when that is done. For now this what we got. First thing first was getting the tele out of the way, so I moved it on to the chimney breast. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ps5e0c0f9b.jpg Its a little bit high I think but if it was any lower I think it would look worse. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...psb4bb7664.jpg After this picture was taken I got some of that stickable trunking to route and hide the cables up the wall, along the picture frame and down the side of the fire place in to the kit on the side. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...psf56f7f1e.jpg I also decided that I did not like DVD racks to the side. All different levels, not all DVDs fitting. So I decided to take them down, cut them up and make my own. I kept the long parts of the racks and cut them in half cause they are to thick and looked a bit silly with the DVDs on and loads of self left. The little selfing parts I also cut in half and used them for the side supports. Starting. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...psiyutlhtx.jpg A quickish job but satifying and looks so much better than before. I also got some wood left over to use in the back room. Best of all it was freeish. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...psr4yw3tq6.jpg Waiting for the new sofa to come and then we can work out what we are doing with the TV stand thing left of the tele. Hopefully the record player will go in the back room, the 5.1 system needs to be sold, then the only things we have left is the xbox and Video player. |
I thought this room would be easy sort out but did not turn out that easy.
The dogs gets in the way, our want to keep the chairs, jukebox and put all other things I have out of boxes. With a black fire, black fire place, dark wood jukebox we wanted to make some selfs that kind of matched. so we went off to B&Q to see what they got. We found some nice dark wood conti board at a price that did not sit well with us. So we bought two this month which is enough to do one set of selves. This is enough to remove the 6 boxes of records, put the table away and generally make the room feel a bigger and better organised. The left side alcove of the fire place is smaller than the right side. The left side has a false wall on the right for the heating pipes and electrics. The right side is pure brick all the way round and the juke box fits in with 5mm to spare so that dictates where the juke box and records go. I started on the right side cause of the jukebox and records. Plus I'm not a fan of false walls, so I'm having to do some thinking about the left side alcove and make sure happy with it. With the right side mainly being 12" records, I did the same design as the shelves in the front room but added an extra support on the back and brackets at each corner to stop the shelf from tilting or lifting up. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...psdb688e2e.jpg The bottom shelf was a bit touch and go on if the jukebox would fit under it. It was tight but it fitted. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...psf87127d7.jpg Shelving completed and room put back to some form of normality for now. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...pslddxfyvh.jpg Can't forget the dogs. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...psbscuvrnn.jpg Left side with the table in storage. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...psehmyhdza.jpg Hopefully I will have enough room to build the shelving for the 8 track player, reel to reel, 8mm projector, record player, NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube and my 7" records. I think I'm pushing it and I might have to reorganise the right hand side. Time will tell when I get some more wood. |
With the drive way the way it is, there was never any chance of me getting my car in to the garage.
Even if I could I doubt I could have opened the doors or stored anything in the garage. So I resigned myself the fact that it was going to be for storage and workshop. With this I had to sort out a few things. First was the water ingress. The roof was fine, the rear window was fine but the garage door had an issue. The issue was a 2inch gap at the bottom. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ps65e90cf4.jpg The 2inch gap, coupled with the angle of the drive meant rainwater would flow into the garage and flood it. The previous owner has tried to stop this by adding channel about 2 foot back from the door that moved the water in to a side channel and down into the drain. This did not work well cause they put a massive length of 6x6" wood between this channel and the door to help guide the water in to the side channel. This worked but the gap also let in all the leave, debris and other random crap that would find its way to the bottom of the drive. I cleaned the driveway and area behind the door and fitted a rubber strip to the bottom of the door to help stop the rain and debris from coming in. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ps18c8703d.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ps11f4b7fd.jpg It works about 98% of the time but there is a slight gab on the left of the door where it don't reach the floor or frame properly. This is fine really. It stops the bottom of the drive flooding and the amount that comes in is small and all flows nicely down the channel. Next was to try and store some of the larger items I have. The largest item being the pacific 700 roof box (for sale). This box is over 7 foot long. The garage roof is flat, the garage floor is not. Its about 6-7 foot high at the door end and about 10 foot high at back end. I'm about 6'4" and I thought it would be a good idea to hang the roof box from the roft. get it up high enough in to the rafters and it will up out of the way and not effect my walking around. I started to think of the best way to get it up and down as easy as possible while not breaking my back. I thought a nice pulley system would work well and be kind of cool. I started designing the pulley system, buying bits and dropped off a design off to my mate for the main support bracket for the roof box. This is what I came up with. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ps2e20e91b.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...psfc7e2a92.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ps441ac322.jpg It worked really well. Got the box out of the way, gave me loads more floor space and it did not get in the way that much. But it does make the front of the garage seem very dark. Next was more worktop space. I had a length of worktop left over from doing the box room and some wood as well. I used that lot to make some extra work space. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ps3vrdxj8j.jpg Paranoid about weight and strength, I did another gallow bracket and.... http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ps07twav8e.jpg Used some random shelving brackets to brace the sides up. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...psobwxdfi7.jpg I did make a slight measurement error. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...pszh3sopzn.jpg Soon corrected. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...psnibdle6s.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...psys4tvjo4.jpg Weight test. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...psbdr5kv6l.jpg All good, time for the rest. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...pshmkgikem.jpg I need some extra lighting in the garage, shift the roof box, remove some bits from the old A4 and put some more storage up. There is never enough storage. |
Been busy I see,
It's a labour of love, it's taken me ten years to gut every room in my house and rebuild them the way I wanted, money was tight to begin with as I was just starting out as a trainee ROV pilot back then. We suffered many a cold winter with no heating, floors, plaster, ceilings etc to get it to the condition it is now, but like you I took it on and did everything myself apart from skimming the walls etc. There's a nice sense of satisfaction to stand back and look at something you done yourself. Keep it up, and most importantly enjoy it. I had to chuckle at the measurement error on the workbench, I have had no end of little mistakes like cutting mitres on coving the wrong way, cutting things too short etc but it's all part of the learning experience. |
Thanks Del.
Definitely enjoying it. I need to get some bits done on the garden next. I'm getting annoying of not having a decent place for a outside table. Need to learn how to build a wall, level a section out and then build garden furniture from old pallets. I picked up my Grandad's (RIP) old 8 track player on the weekend and a old volt metre. Can't wait to get that set up and on a self. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...shgqemznx.jpeg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...psxalulwaw.jpg |
That volt meter looks like something out of flash Gordon's rocket ship lol :D
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or Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow.
Its a lot bigger than I originally thought. |
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