My man cave build - UK edition

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Thanks for the kind words gents, much appreciated

Greetings David, Mrs Ahab has been side tracked with a bit of boundary wall maintenance but this delivery is waiting for her attention. This little pile is 3/4's of a ton of pizza oven building materials, including 120 fire bricks, fire mortar, chimney sections and 2" thick fibre board base plate



My garage roof building work has been interrupted by Mr and Mrs Pigeon, spent more than a week ripping down their days nest building work. In the end I gave up as they were just so determined and I was starting to feel a bit guilty turfing them out on the street. Pleased to say they're proud parents of two chicks that are doing fine despite all the noise and my constant cursing 7 days of the week



Spent a lot of time building the floor under what will be the main bathroom and an en-suite bathroom. It's not a straight forward floor construction which has been quite time consuming. Hopefully the below will explain it enough to make sense

First job was to take out the new structural floor joists I'd temporarily fitted to expose the ye olde oak beam fakery. The 6" x 8" main beams and 3" x 4" joists were all reclaimed and at least 250-300 years old, so were all hand cut timber. Not much work needed to finish off the oak, just a bit of sanding, chiselling and screwing





As the area below could have a car parked then next step was to add some fire protection. 1/2" plaster board with a 30 min fire protection (minimum UK domestic requirement) was used. With extra careful measuring, cutting and fitting and quite a bit of wastage there were no visible joints between the joists or gaps where the plasterboard sat on the wobbly shaped oak joists



They say 'pride comes before a fall'. I was feeling very proud of how the the driveway ceiling turned out right up to the point I fell through the plasterboard sticking my size 10 foot and leg right through all my hard work, F*@K! Once my tourettes outburst subsided I did a local repair job which won't be visible once everything has been plastered and painted



As the structural section of the flooring is only 6" deep due to limited driveway/internal ceiling headroom and the bathroom areas will be tiled I had to get a little inventive to make this part of the 1st floor area stiff enough that it won't flex too much and potentially crack the floor tiles. As happened in the original part of the house.

From right to left in the below picture are the 4 different stages of the structural floor construction



Far right are the bare 2" x 6" softwood floor joists at 16" spacing

Like the US we have regulations for floor joist holes and notches. Smallest waste pipe I can use has a 34mm OD, largest hole I can have is a smidge over 36mm, closest hole cutter I own was 35mm.

Not much room for error, so using a length of string and a vernier I measured the holes centres and then crossed my fingers drilling as accurately as I could, mission accomplished!

The insulation specified and approved by building control was 6" thick mineral wool but as I like a toasty warm bathroom I've gone over spec. using 5" PIR insulation which has an equivalent insulation value of 9" mineral wool

To reinforce the floor I screwed/glued 2" x 2" timber to the floor joists which allows 3/4" plywood to be screwed/glued flush with the top of the floor joists

Not shown will be a top layer of 3/8" plywood covering the 3/4" plywood panels and floor joists. This will also be be covered with 1/16" hardboard which is what the tiles will be grouted onto.

[Scott Douglas]

Very interesting Capt'n.
This floor is a lot like the mezzanine floor I helped my brother build in his shop. Instead of old beam timbers we used brand new pallet racks. The top layer ended up being 1-1/2" plywood. I'd post pics but it's his story to tell, not mine.
I can't imagine how you felt when you stepped thru the floor after getting it to look so good.

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Still chipping away at this project, work on it nearly everyday, all day making slow but steady progress with my 2 steps forward 1 step back approach

Pictures I have aren't very good at showing how much work has been done so I'll save them for when it's possible to spot the difference

As F1 shuts down for the 1st two weeks of August and the weather forecast was looking dry I decided to take a mini-break from my new build. Had a week of maintenance jobs on the back of the original part of the house and the rear ground floor extension I built 19yrs ago. Nothing exciting, wire brushed 50yrs of moss off the roof, painted the fascia boards green, fitted new guttering, mortar/lead repairs and replaced a few broken roof tiles. Looks tons better so time well spent

Mrs Ahab's pizza oven is proving a difficult job, in the space of a morning she destroyed a 4.5" and a brand new 9" diamond angle grinder blades trying to cut fire bricks. The bricks are so hard the are just killing blades when dry cutting Need to hire a water cooled 14" diamond saw just like I used to own Our neighbor has now hired Mrs Ahab to do a few building jobs so I'll have to wait until she is free

Quite often I have a bright idea, I then start off doing the work and it dawns on me what a monster task I've taken on, in too deep so can't turn back so I keep at it until it's done, kind of like the story of this build

Today's job is a perfect example.....

Never liked the look of the black rain water down pipe on the stone wall of the drive through and thought it needed to be slightly more discrete as it spoilt the look of the front entrance porch



So I bought a 4.5" core drill and enough shaft extensions to make a 3.5ft deep vertical hole down through the porch solid stone plinth to hide away the down pipe inside the stone plinth

I drilled and drilled, hours went by, after a while I felt I was looking down a mini-version of this hole as I couldn't reach or see the bottom of the abyss I'd made



Eventually I reached the ground, then started again with a horizontal hole, lots and lots of chiseling the holes intersected, mission accomplished, phew!

Just mocked up the new down pipe position as my arms/wrists didn't seem to want to work. I think it looks heaps neater, no one else will notice but that doesn't matter



The plastic white electrical box to the right will have to go too but I'll leave that battle for another day

[911 Rod]

Much better!
Now you have to cover it up with stone. lol

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Originally Posted by 911 Rod

Much better!
Now you have to cover it up with stone. lol

Thanks, 911 Rod!

[Racerbvd]

Very nice, mission accomplished.

[billybek]

Nice work!
Now can you do something with that grey box to the right of the entry?
I should probably run, duck and hide now...

[astrochex]

Originally Posted by 911 Rod

Much better!
Now you have to cover it up with stone. lol

I was thinking the same thing, sorry.

It already looks heaps better than before.

[911 Rod]

I wonder if you could make some kind of speckle (no idea what its called) with the stone dust and paint it on the pipe?

[javadog]

I’m tired, just from looking at the pictures.

Can’t imagine how you must feel…

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Old part of the house was thatched with a wide overhang so never had rain water guttering, what I need is some sort of invisible stealth coating to make them disappear

Bill, all in hand on the grey box, it's where the electrical company hooks up to the house, plan to do something a bit more aesthetically pleasing

I've done something neat with the lighting for the drive through opening which I'm hoping will work well, will post up a pic when it's all wired up and working

Javadog, me too, have to confess to having a siesta after this mornings activities, looks like snow but yet more mess from cutting flagstones. I keep finding new ways to make a mess, just wait until you see the pile of rubble the two door openings through to the old part of the house will create



All dry fitted, they're around 3" thick, a few are too heavy for me to delicately fit in place for mortaring so I'll ask Mrs Ahab to help me. These steps are up to where we'll hide the trash cans around the side of the shed, they'll get some abuse so need to be laid well



This reminds me of the old joke..... What do husbands and stone flagstones have in common? If you lay them right the 1st time, you can walk all over them for life

[javadog]

Lol…

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Rear of the house before my week of staycation maintenance, note the vegetarian friendly main roof with half a century of moss growth



Decided I didn't want to wait decades for the old and new roof to look the same so I Mc Quivered up a super long handled wire brush and put my bingo wings through a hell of a work out brushing off the moss

Looks so much better but the front can wait until next summer. With an old house there is always something exciting that needs doing

Yew hedge we planted last Oct. has taken really well, growing great guns but ma dawg keeps poking his head through it to bark at folks walking past. He's great dog, got a good bark on him and quite protective of his flock!



Back to the new build, with Mrs Ahab's help lifting the full sheets I finished the fireproof plaster boarding of the ceiling on the high half of the garage

Even with two of us, man oh man a full sheet of 1/2 plasterboard is a heavy lump to lift and hold in place



20ft floor to ceiling height should do it No idea how the plasterer will cope, think I'll spoil him and get the scaffolders back in to build a raised platform as I doubt he'll have tall enough stilts for this job

[oldE]

Ye gads man!
When I hung the gyproc on our cathedral ceilings thirty eight years ago, I built two extendable "deadmen", one with a pivoting base to allow me to get the sheets up there. And I had only 12 feet to the peak.
I only dropped the driver once.

Looking good!
Best
Les

[Sooner or later]

Ma Dog is a tiny little thing.

[Scott Douglas]

How do you plan on heating that garage with the ceiling so high?

On your steps, I'd flip flop the second step pieces to move the 'joint' more to the left of center. I think it would look more pleasing to the eye, but that's just me.

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Originally Posted by Scott Douglas

How do you plan on heating that garage with the ceiling so high?

On your steps, I'd flip flop the second step pieces to move the 'joint' more to the left of center. I think it would look more pleasing to the eye, but that's just me.

Scott, you have a good eye, agree 100%

Only just had enough flagstones left, so couldn't be as choosy as I'd have liked, look at how many pieces make up the top step and the difference in thicknesses

I wanted a smoother, natural edge on both sides of the joints instead of a more hard, straight cut edge which it would have been if they were flipped



They're reclaimed, cost over $200 square yard and as the steps aren't in a prominent position so I let this one slide

[javadog]

OK, just this once.

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Best kept builders secret, can't believe I've only just been told this from my builder and another builder

'When the roof is on, you're only about half way finished'

Still working every day on this, most evenings too, still making steady progress, still ache when I wake up but still thoroughly enjoying myself, well most of the time I am

Since the last update I've moved some timber using my face, that smarted a bit, my face buffed out in a week so no permanent damage done

Also fell off the 3rd floor in the pitch darkness, using my ninja, spidey skillz I grabbed a floor joist on my way down before delicately nailing a feet first, stand up dismount on the 2nd floor

Don't think I'm ready for retirement just yet as it all seems a bit of a dangerous pastime to me

[oldE]

Captain, i got to confess i am a lot more circumspect at height than I was 30 years ago.
I try to plan my platforms, handhold and movements so I don't find myself forced to grab madly for my 'last chance '.
Glad you landed on your feet. Sounds like the other end was compromised.

Best
Les