Mike’s Garage and Landscaping project.

A few more photos of the slab, lots of steel!

great thread Michael. i can sympathise with the slab situation. i waited for months to get someone who was able to do mine.

Thanks, Most people prefer the military version, the 101, but I've always wanted one of these, just need to get it back on the road.

yes indeed #twincammy, but Sometimes you have to put up with the delays etc to get a decent job! I’m very pleased with the slab. Even the building inspector thought theyd done a very good job.

on the suject of the jags next door,  what you can see in the photos is the tip of the iceberg, he has many hidden away! i’m sure more than his wife is aware of!

Thanks for your interest, sorry its taken a while  to update, but here we are,

so, i had a floor, next step had  to be the walls. Having put up a few garden walls, i thought i’d be better getting a brickie in. Found a local guy, who was brilliant, turned up when he said he would, and came back every day until he’d finished, a refreshing change from the groundworkers!

Ordered some blocks etc, and the below went up very quickly.







I hired a genie material lift to do the lintel, and i helped the brickie get it up, and within 10 days or so, i had all the neighbours asking how many flats i was putting up..



The next challenge was steels, due to the length, it needed a ridge beam, and this in turn would need a support half way down. Although i had drawings i held off until the blocks were up, just in case.

Very glad i did. The engineering drawings hadnt really properly considered the front doorway. I wanted a roller shutter to maximise space. If we’d built it by the drawings the roller shutter would have poked through the roof, not ideal!
Did annoy me somewhat, as i’d been quite specific and paid a chunk of money, but anyway some hasty changes were made to the roofline, whilst the blocks were flying up.
I then measured up, measured up again, and then once more, and sent my drawings off to the steel guys. ( yet another thing that has gone up a lot recently,


You can see the central support lying fown in the middle. It wieghed anout 400kgs i think. Was a challenge getting it off the lorry with my mini digger, but it came off eventually, and once on the concrete floor, rolling them around was easy, i just used 4 short scaffold tubes and rolled them into position.



Getting them up in the air would be a little trickier though! I hired 2 beam lifters, as these would need to go to nearly 3 meters, and the genie lifters don’t go that high.

Found a willing friend to come and help( i owe him a few favours now) and cracked on.








Amazingly it fitted perfectly, if a very close fit on the width, and i did have to trim the length slightly. But once it was up i was really starting to feel like it was moving on!
Next would be the roof, but i’ll have to come back to that, thanks
Mike.

Hi rob, yes there’s a bit more done, been meaning to update for a while, but life gets in the way!

Id previously got quotes for the roller door, and the door had arrived, so i got them booked in to fit it.





Was amazing to get it secure and watertight (ish)
But as per the below, it was still pretty wet inside





Got a few demudifiers, and started to dry it out inside ( still january) and then a few weeks later i was able to start painting the walls, and the floors.
Blocks really sucked up the paint, think it was 3 coats and took forever. Really glad i did it then, as fairly soon, it started to fill up.

thanks for the update, been enjoying this one!

Got a good friend to come round and render it, looks much better now, also finished the roof off, with felt shingles.






Still need to do more landscaping on the other side, but I think that will be a summer job.

Got the big landy inside, it was a little tight getting it in, it was measured and planned to go in, but I hadn’t taken into account the roller door hanging 50mm below the steel, had to let some air out of the tyres.





Getting pretty full now..