A build log of my place, a 6.5 x 5.5 x 2.5m diy home workshop!

[kingcreaky]

Hi All.

Its been a while since positng on here, but I have been very much active in the background . Ive even met up with some of you. :D

So, although im a member of many forums (I have too many hobbies) I find myself warmest to this one, and its for this reason I have decided to post my workshop build thread here, I know its a bit off topic, but atleast this forum has a category for workshop's. Even though there is a distinct LACK of posts in here!! Gav's thread re container drew my attention to its existence.. so here goes.

It all started, when living at my previous house, in the middle of suburbia with a garden not big enough to swing a cat. My wife wondered why I spent literally all my spare time at my parents. She later realized I was like a fish out of water with nowhere to get oily. Work commitments required a change in location, and top of the priorities for search criteria, was an external garage and rear access.

So, in 2006 I bought this. my very own



Oh, and a house!. but lets face it.. its all about the garage!!

So, I have rear access. And its also all over the deeds to the house. But the access is shared with a farmer, and the council rentable garage side that resides behind my house.

Within a year of moving in, id adapted it to make it wider and deeper






here are a few more (these are probably over the years after the first build, so garage looking older) Although pictures generally not of the garage itself you can see it in the background.. along with the old council garages




lol. mini upside down!

and slowly building tools, and other interests other than cars. I started renting garages as they became available... and knocking through



until I had a little empire!.



So to be clear, my garage is the one at the bottom of my garden. All the rest are council garages, and owned by the council.

But all that is good comes to an end. We are no longer in the 70's, Times have changed, the garage site behind me over the 30 years its been there has fallen into disrepair, and the council no longer have enough demand for rentable garages, and as such they decided to sell the site... to "a developer" :-(

and work began!!


The only thing worse, than the fact, my lovely perfect house backing onto open fields, and basically my own private empire of garages is being turned into a housing estate, is the fact they are "apartments". (they mean flats). 2 blocks of 4 one bedroom, and two dorma bungalows (you can see bungalows in picture)

So... now is the time, for me to make my workshop bigger. But Im not made of money, so il have to do it as cheap as I can for now.

Its presently 6m, by about 3m and 2m high. I intend to make it 6.5m, 5.5m x 2.5m high (limited on height due to building restrictions, being so close to my perimeter)

So, dwarf wall (as garden ground is higher) concrete panels on top, then a proper wooden insulated flat roof with torch on felt.

1.) hand mix 8 tonnes of ballast and many many bags of cement, then build dwarf retaining wall out of dense blocks


2) temporary garage (to store contents of workshop)