Garden mix room near Nottingham, UK

#106

garethmetcalf wrote:Source of the postThe end might be in sight...

What a lovely feeling!

#107

How nice when things are taking shape!.

#108

Day 136.

On Monday evening and for a couple of hours after work today I have been putting down the wooden floor. As our house has lots of laminate I thought I’d do something different in the studio and went with 600mm squares of 12mm softwood ply.

These were cut by the timber yard for me and they’re pretty consistent sizes. Despite them being stored in a stack with weight on top, some are slightly warped so I had to go through and split into two piles. The warped ones have been used for the bits that need to be cut to size.

The proper glue is expensive but I still think the floor will have cost less than a laminate. Once finished I will sand it all down, which will hopefully remove some of the inconsistencies in height between some of the squares (either due to warping or a not perfectly flat floor screed) and then a clear varnish.

They are laid so that each has the grain going in at a right angle. I think this has inspired a Scandinavian design style for this room, so all the material covering for ceiling and walls will be white. Colour will come from up lighting and a colourful (probably a bold blue colour) sofa.

Going to collect my glass for door and window tomorrow and cut and glue the last few bits of floor down. With any luck I’ll have window and door in early next week so I can do the baseline REW test then crack on with introducing treatment.

Saturday afternoon we have some guests in the garden so I’ll be trying to put the recently arrived larch cladding up on the front in the morning!!

#109

Excellent, that chequered floor will look well good. I have a similar "colour" scheme in my place in terms of decor, wood floor, slightly off white walls & ceiling and self coloured calico for material. People seem very comfortable in it. To my mind it's like an artistic blank canvas. The idea is that the studio and paraphernalia (mics, cables, etc.) disappear and it becomes all about the music.

I like the photo with the grab box of TX screws. Had to top mine up today with a couple of sizes I'd run out of, as I think you predicted!

Cheers,
Jennifer

#110

Yeah I’m hoping the colour scheme works ok and it’ll make the best of the light coming in too.

That picture shows the grab box because I was trying to find things to weigh down the corners on some of the pieces of wood, hence the circular saw appearing in the other pic too.

I’m on my second grab box plus top ups of two particular sizes (which seem cheaper at Wickes surprisingly) and I have an awful lot of the smallest size screw left! No idea what I’ll be doing with these for the next ten years.

I’ve just been and collected the two sheets of 11.5mm thick glass in my car - very scary as a hatchback car is not designed to carry such a load. Luckily the guys at the glass place helped find some random stuff to pack under the glass. Of course I’ve now got dog hair from the car boot on the glass and I know that’ll mean there’ll be dog hair forever locked between the inner and outer windows...

#111

Thanks for the Wickes tip, these top up boxes are indeed expensive.

The sheets of glass on your car reminded me of that scene in The Omen film :ahh:

Glad you made it home ok

#112

Hey, you are flying along now, Gareth, and that's grand! I like that floor, nice and airy, light and unique. Watch that you don't have an accident with the glass - it was here or on Gearspace that I read about someone whose glass was delivered and while it leaned against the wall, waiting to be put in situ, a shard from whatever they were angle grinding hit and cracked the pane.

#113

Crikey that sounds scary and very annoying! I’ve left the glass in the car and asked my Dad to come and help tomorrow when we can fit the window. The door isn’t ready yet though, so there will indeed be a piece of glass waiting around whilst I make that next week. I’m thinking I’ll put it flat on the floor but I really don’t know what’s best.

Gareth

#114

You may know this already, Gareth, but be careful with laying glass flat like that. When you lift it, make sure you support the whole thing, otherwise you could cause the glass to "snap" if you lift from just the edges causing extra stress to the middle. It should be stored and carried in an upright manner. Use lots of blankets before you lean it against the wall and cover it so nothing can hit the glass by accident, as Starlight had mentioned.

I love the floor idea. I think it's going to look incredible when you get it sanded and finished. Very cool idea!

#115

Thanks Jag. I didn’t know that about glass as this is the first time I’ve used it, but I’m pleased to say that both pieces came out the car ok.

My Dad and I installed the window today and the other piece is very carefully propped and held against the wall in the studio awaiting the door construction.

To install the window I followed very specific advice from Rod Gervais that was on the John Sayers forum as an extension to the detail in his book.

In brief:
1. Glass is sized slightly smaller than the gap it’s going in (between 5 and 10mm overall in my case)
2. Neoprene shims (around 2mm thick) are placed under the glass on both sides to get it square. In my case this meant three shims on each side
3. The glass is taken out and then butyl glazing tape which is sticky and gooey is stuck to the wood the glass will press against
4. The glass is put back in and pushed up to the glazing tape, with the shims underneath
5. The gaps between glass and frame are sealed with glazing silicon sealer
6. Glazing tape is then stuck to the glass, and the outer wood pushed up against this and screwed in place.

For reference this is the glazing tape I bought: https://www.wholesaleglasscompany.co.uk ... black.html

Can’t wait for the door to be able to test how well this completes the isolation/sound reduction.

#116

Lovely stuff. Great to see these "recipes" I've read getting put into practice.

Cheers!
Jennifer

#117

Day 139 through to 144

On Saturday attention moved from inside to outside and the Siberian larch cladding was cut and nailed to the front of the building. I’d had this stained by the timber company and I’m glad I did as the finish is great and very even. I don’t know how long the colour will last but it looks great for now. They provided a small pot of the stain so as I cut each piece of cladding to length I stained the cut ends for protection.

All the cladding was also fire treated by the timber company because of the proximity to the fence (UK building regulations), but I haven’t bothered getting the timber for the sides and back stained as it won’t really be visible. I’ll be putting this up over the next two weeks and can then finally glue the roof EPDM down.

The cladding was expensive and I kind of wish I’d found a cheaper solution for the sides and back now, but it’s done.

Since then in evenings I cut and glued down the plywood floor onto my ‘step trap’, trying to follow the grid pattern from the floor. There were two curved pieces that I had to cut twice because they weren’t good enough first time and I’m glad I kicked my own ass into doing that rather than an “it’ll be alright” attitude. This means that the floor is ready for sanding and varnishing but that can wait.

I also finished the wood trim around the window:

And, I drilled through into the house for the armoured power and data cables. I had to borrow a sizeable drill bit off a friend for the power cable as it’s 27mm thick. In terms of routing, not long before we bought the house and earth rod was installed and the cable from this runs through the wall, under the utility room cupboards and up to the consumer unit. On the outside this hole is just below the render, so about 4 bricks up from ground level.

I drilled a hole next to the earth cable to follow the same path. Frustratingly my attempts in trying my best to keep the drill level had the opposite effect as it turns out the earth cable hole had gone in at an upward angle. I therefore managed to finally come up into the room about 40cm from the wall, because the drill ended up grazing the top of the concrete floor! What a mess, but luckily hidden from view as under cupboards (which now can never be moved!). I just hope I haven’t ruptured any damp proofing. For the data cable I made sure the drill was at a slight upward angle and came out perfectly just under the skirting board also under the cupboards. I connected the data cable at both ends to an RJ45 socket and at the house end this will be plugged into a power line network adaptor and at the studio end I’ve bought a WiFi access point. Tested yesterday and it works! Fingers crossed the electrician is coming tomorrow to connect up!

The main block in progress now is the inside door which I’m waiting for a friend that’s better at woodworking to assemble....

#118

That looks incredible. Getting the posh cladding was well worth it for sure!

#119

Day 145 - the electrician came!!

Today feels like a milestone, because even though I’ve had power to the studio build via a long extension lead and that has powered the lights I fitted a few weeks ago, late this afternoon my family friend electrician came and connected up.

Even though I’d wired all the sockets, lighting and switches etc it still took him three hours to wire up the consumer unit in the studio, wire that to the main consumer unit in the house and do his checks. Frustratingly the armoured cable ended up about 50cm too long at the studio and 50cm too short at the house, so he had to connect the bit he cut off from the studio end to make the house end long enough!

On the plus side, the earth and rcd checks he did highlighted that our earth isn’t great (currently from a recently installed earth rod) but he recommended that we appeared to have the potential for a good quality earthy from the incoming power, so I’ll be contacting the power distribution company to sort this. He said has it is with the additional distance to the studio the earth at the studio could be separately earthed but he figured it would be easier and better to just get the power board to sort the house earth for free.

This sort of thing just goes to show how important professionals are in self builds. Yes, I was competent and able to do the bulk of the wiring of the studio itself, but I never would have known our overall earth connection could or should be better.

Connection to house consumer unit:

Studio consumer unit:

Unfortunately progress on the inner door has gone backwards. The wood we’d cut and prepared tenon/mortar joints in has warped so it’s back to the drawing board. My new plan is to create a door from 3 x 18mm ply, with the 11.5MM glass I’ve bought comprising the majority of the door with the ply around the outside. More to follow on this...

#120

That cladding sure looks classy; psychologically it should help the neighbours feel more positive about your new garden shed. I do like the added touch of matching the steps to the studio floor.

I am sorry to hear about the warped door wood. All the best for a new, improved door.

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