My man cave build - UK edition

[astrochex]

My adjective vocabulary is limited and used up so I don't know what else to say.

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Thanks for the compliments and I have passed on your kind comments to Mrs Ahab (the management)

Glen, there is nothing stopping insects setting up home, in fact the guys occasionally have to fend off bee's that get evicted when replacing old thatch

mgatepi, Mrs Ahab does it all, everything a professional builder does, digging, lifting, demolition, concreting, stonework, landscaping, painting, structural steel work lifting, loading/unloading materials, roofing, walling, block work etc etc Please send your wife over for a Cotswold Building Spa Break, she'll have a great time

Rod, bottom of the wall is semi-supporting as I'm sure without it over time the upper, old wall would move

Exciting week this week, our builder was back on site to finish off the pillars for the man cave entrance. Not quite as impressive as the pillars on the Pantheon but they do add a little something to the rear aspect



The stone around the last window was finished too, couple of obligatory arty shots. 2nd photo showing our front door, it all looks old but it's not as we added the porch when we built the rear extension





Mostly tidying up this weekend, easy job this morning was freshly painting the garage opening steel beams then followed by some heavy lifting by Mrs Ahab and myself getting everything in place for hopefully the last big lift this week



The 'oak' beam I thought was oak isn't. After sanding and cutting it to length I quickly realized it wasn't as it's easily the hardest wood I've ever come across. It's 9" x 9" square and nearly 20ft long but with less than 0.5" curvature so almost as straight as a straight thing



After a bit of internet sleuthing I found out that it's an African hardwood (can't remember the name) with a higher specific gravity than water so it weighs in around 300kgs or 660lbs

[Won]

Sounds like you need a carbon boom. Call up your America's Cup buddies

[Captain Ahab Jr]

no light weight stuff going on with this build Won, it's my antidote to work

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Really excited this morning, opening my eyes from my slumber I was more excited than when I have my normal 'I am alive?' waking up thoughts as finally today my man cave was going to have the last side of the garage entrance fitted

With the help of Mrs Ahab and Ahab Jr everything was done 2 tense hours later without anyone being shouted at or crushed

First up were two 6" steel columns (not used traditional taller steel beam sections as I've tried to maximize height wherever possible) sections bolted together weighing in at a reassuring 660lbs. One steel section will hold up the rear roof and one will hold up the garage doors and both are bolted together

A bit nerve racking but the steels went in place without incident. It's dangerous work so I kept well clear shouting instructions and taking pics



Then onto the cherry of the 'garage opening' cake, the 9" square 660kg wood beam. I found out the type of wood, it's Ekki or Azobe wood https://www.wood-database.com/ekki/ hardest wood I've ever cut

Believe it or not this is just for show and won't take any loads other than the weight of itself. Having had our practice on the steels this went up in no time, much easier than the steels



Next up will be some joisting action as I need to get the rear roof on this lot

[Captain Ahab Jr]

I spend my life creating shapes on CAD so I'm pretty good at visualizing stuff but even when I'm stood in front of my man cave it's sometimes hard to work out the scale of my garage without a car in it. Some days I think there is acres of space and other days I think it will be too pokey

Only one way to check what room I will have, so today Jr Ahab and I spent a few hours man handling my spare Toyota off the driveway

With my Toyota's tow bar embedded through the plasterboard rear wall I had to climb over it to get from one side to the other with the garage door closed. Wasn't the most enjoyable way of working on a car for fun



With my new 'improved' man cave, the garage walls are only 1ft thick (half the thickness of my old garage stone walls), and we added a small 5.75ft deep rear extension, this being the only extra added to the footprint of the original building.

Different colour but exact same sized Toyota with the front end 1.5ft clear of the rear wall. That's much better, my climbing over a truck days are over!



In the original building there was a partition wall on the left side so just over half of the width of the floor area could be used as a garage.



I'm now using 80% of the width for the garage space. The other 20% will be used as a utility room and a domestic heating boiler. I mentioned to Mrs Ahab about me making a sliding partition wall so I could squeeze out a bit more 'temporary' space but that idea didn't go down well at all



You can never have too much horsepower, money, shoes or space Not a massive garage compared to the usual massive US build's but I think I'll be very happy with my extra space when it's all done.

[LJ851]

What an improvement !

I really enjoy this thread, thanks again for posting it.

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by Captain Ahab Jr

It's dangerous work so I kept well clear shouting instructions and taking pics

I earned my Masters Degree in exactly that.

It is a gift.

[A930Rocket]

This thread never stops to amaze.

Being a home builder myself, you’re doing fantastic work. You should be proud.

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Thanks, LJ851 and A930, we really appreciate comments like these

Only a mini update as rain and other commitments have dented my weekend time

Architect drawing for the end elevation. Idea behind raising the boundary wall was to hide the garage extension roof so the end of the building is a little more pleasing to look at when viewed from the road



This the reality after Mrs Ahab finished her stone work and I finished off the top with traditional 'shuckers'. Native lingo for the sticky up stone used to top a wall off.

Angle of the raised section of boundary wall is slightly different as I've made the pitch of the garage extension roof a little steeper.

Quite please with it as no one will ever know part of my man cave is behind an old looking stone garden wall

Just need to finish the missing rainwater gutter section and pop a window in and this end of the house is done



View from our side, angled section matches the other side. Still need to work out what I do with the joint between the boundary wall and building



Finished off the top of the wall with some sculptured 'sharp sand' This sand has a course grain and more durable to the elements than the 'builders sand' we used on the house walls

Not easy to see from the photo but the profile goes from a narrow concave gully on the slope up against the black strip of damp membrane to a wide convex crown at the bottom where the wall top is horizontal. I still have some lead flashing to do which should keep all the rain water out.

Should have left the cement profiling work for Mrs Ahab as she's very good at icing cakes so would have made a better job of it than I did

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Had a bit of a 'ladder rodeo' ride this weekend, not my first rodeo so I'd like to say I rode it like a pro cowboy hanging on with one hand and waving the other while shouting 'Yeee haaaw! Instead I hung on with both hands letting out a little girls scream with a loud ooffff on landing, followed by an even louder 'f$*k!' on the dismount and then a 'where's my 'f$*king shoe gone'?

As soon as I stepped on the ladder I knew I'd been stupid, easy to spot why too



No harm done to me, I bounce pretty well for an old dude but I'm gutted as I snapped the wooden handle on a spade we inherited when we bought the house It's faithfully moved +100 tons so I had plans to retire it when done, mounting it on a wooden plinth and hanging it on the wall of my man cave like a deep sea sailfish

Mean while in the safe environment of a trench Mrs Ahab as been busy adding another 18" of new stone to the bottom of boundary wall.

She wasn't too accepting that she had to lower her standards to match her previous work back when she was just an amateur. This was her first wall build.



Same approach as the previous wall, dig down, dig back ground, cut/chisel back previous concrete footing, pour new concrete footings, build new wall up to meet old wall. As this is quite a tall wall I went a bit thicker on the concrete footings.

I got back on my horse today and made some progress with the rear roof but I'll leave that for the next update

[astrochex]

Oh man, glad to see you’re ok and did not become a Darwin meme.

Did Mrs. Ahab witness your rodeo ride?

[madcorgi]

Glad you were OK! Scary. This is such a great thread about such a cool project, Captain! A vintage Lotus Grand Prix car would look great sitting in a shop like this.

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Thanks gents, Mrs Ahab heard the clatter, just thought I was moving the ladder about, I was but with me on it

I'm used to time slowing down when I'm about to crash myself, this time I don't remember time doing that

[daepp]

Wow - glad to hear you're ok Cap'n!

Be careful out there.

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Thanks David, it's dangerous out there so I try to be careful

I've not revealed everything about this build as there a few twists and turns to the layout that I'll reveal as we make progress but here is one of them

Not sure I've posted this yet but my man cave has been very much inspired by one of my favourite toys from my childhood. Haven't got mine and still regret that it was left behind when we moved from overseas to the UK. One day I will have one to play with again but in the meantime I'm building my own full sized version of it.



Back on post #284, 4 pages back and over a year ago dappe, David suggested adding a feature I've always wanted to include in my build. It was good enough for my Fisher Price garage it should be good enough for me now

So after much pondering I called a car turntable company last week and arranged to view a 15ft/4.5m diameter remote control motorized installation on a gravel drive, which we all had a family outing to view this morning.



Had soft start, rotated both directions, over torque auto shutdown, silent running, very sturdy and appeared well made, I was quite impressed.

The good news is Mrs Ahab likes the idea of it so I have local planning authority approval the bad news it's quite expensive for a completely needless luxury item, the undecided news is I'm still not sure about it

As always, I'd be very interested to hear what you guys think

[javadog]

I can see a need for one in certain circumstances, but you need to tell us more about where it’s going and what problem it is solving, to have any idea whether we think it’s worthwhile. Hey plan view of the area in question would be useful.

[dan79brooklyn]

That Fisher Price garage is a childhood toy of mine as well. I loved it so much that I bought one on eBay for my kids to play with 10 years ago.
That turntable is pretty slick. I wonder how they keep rocks and sand out of the mechanism, but I guess they figured that out or it wouldn’t be installed on gravel. As long as you have the budget I say go for it!

[Bigtoe32067]

Out of curiosity can you share the approx price for one? I too have always wanted one. Don’t know where I’d put it but it’d still be cool.
Tony

[Captain Ahab Jr]

dan79, you're kids need to keep it for their kids Bet we aren't the only one's here that spent hours playing with one

Hopefully these pic's will help show the lay of the land of my driveway space, you'll need to use your imagination to visualize what it would look like finished with gravel

Driveway starts through the big hole, green oil tank on the right is just there temporarily


View to the left as you emerge from under the house to the rear part of the driveway


Turn table would go in this area


As close to a plan view as I have


For scale it's 1994 Toyota 4Runner in the pic's, size now is considered as a small SUV

For a UK house I have a reasonable amount of parking/turning room but it would need a multi-turn maneuver to be able to drive in and drive out instead of reversing in or out.

Modern cars are so big now something like a Range Rover, large station wagon or 4x4 would be a tight squeeze to turn around. My property is a few hundred years old, vehicles were horses so not a problem back then

Cost of the turn table with Mrs Ahab and I doing all the groundwork is about $10-12k more if we pay people to do it all