Geez! I don't think I'll ever complain about stupid starlings dropping down our chimney into the stove ever again. When I want to clean out our chimney, I just have to shove a nylon brush down the stainless steel liner from the roof of our split level. I didn't realize I had it so good. Glad I didn't offer to clean yours. :D

Best
Les

The Pineapple, near the Atomic Weapons Establishment west of Reading is allegedly in the domesday book - and has a sign stating "duck or grouse" at the door. I'm 5'8" and my hair brushes the beams overhead while I wait for a pint. Charming place, even if they seem hard to keep open over the 20 or so years I've visited.

I loved that things just go on over there. In Oxford, on some unmemorable street, was one of those blue "Some guy lived here" plaques. In this case it was Sir Edmund Halley, there was an empty keg and two ratty bikes leaned up on the wall. Just a normal college flop in other words...

I've been busy but before I post up some progress here are a couple of more interesting things that have happened in front of my man cave build

First up was a classic car rally, an event run by HERO (Historic Endurance Rallying Organisation) on open public roads within the speed limits so unfortunately no slowly sideways around the corners, https://heroevents.eu/

Around 100 classic cars drove by, here is a tastier, thought I'd add an international flavour with cars from a few different countries

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1634596942.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1634597060.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1634597129.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1634597601.jpg

Then a couple of weekends later an international sports event, a first for our sleepy village, the Tour of Britain, https://www.womenstour.co.uk/stages/ which was a round of the UCI Women's World Tour cycling. Looking at the locations of all the rounds it only covers Europe, guessing it must be like your baseball World Series :confused: ;)

It was stage 1 with a 91mile/147km day of riding, the worlds top 100 women cyclists didn't ride through once but twice

The build up was just as exciting as the peloton, with dozens and dozens of police and course control motorbikes zooming through checking the route and a TV helicopter too

Then the peloton whizzed through, 1st time through 2 cyclists had sprinted well ahead of the main pack

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1634599291.jpg

On the 2nd time through the pack had swallowed the leaders up

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1634597909.jpg

Followed by scores and scores of support cars with roof racks packed with spare bikes

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1634598311.jpg

Little did you know you were on such a busy street! Very cool!

Cool stuff. Too bad there is no audio with images.

The old east end was jumping!

Now back to work!

Best
Les

Some progress to bring everything up to date....

Layout of all the 1st floor internal stud walling is done, that's a master bedroom, en suite and family bathroom and hallway

This is the wall between the garage and master bedroom, it's actually 2 separate stud walls. Bedroom side is 2" x 3" and garage side is 2" x 4" with a 1" gap between the two stud walls.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1634939238.jpg

My logic is I want to insulate the hell out this build so each wall will have 3" PIR insulation boards (= 5" rockwool insulation) but need to minimise noise transmission from the garage to the bedroom so I can enjoy productive late nights in my man cave

Also to future proof when we eventually sell, I've added some short vertical studs to support floor joists across the high side of the garage so a raised floor extra bedroom can be easily built ie just add a floor to increase the value when we eventually sell while still allowing headroom for a 2 post vehicle lift for the next petrol head owner

This is the bedroom side of the same wall, for a house with low ceilings everywhere this room will be a complete contrast to the rest of the house.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1634940342.jpg

This is the other end of the faulted master bedroom ceiling. Hopefully with my 'old fakery' skills it will be in total keeping too. Nothing goes to waste on this build, horizontal beam is a 1" thick left over slice from the old oak beam used on the shed opening

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1634939785.jpg

With the 2ft thick external walls internal space is at a premium so it took quite a bit of jiggery pokery and measuring to get the most out the space. Love this part of the project, as the layout firmed up, we made a few changes and improvements to the architects design

View down the front hallway looking towards the garage, door opening will be the door for the extra bedroom we'll add when we come to sell, until then it will be a door to a clothes wardrobe that will overhang the garage

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1634940722.jpg

Stud walls everywhere and more double studs walls too but I'll explain why in later update

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1634940855.jpg

One improvement was to move the vertical hot water tank from the bathroom to a horizontal tank above the vaulted part of the bedroom to gain space for a shower. I'd maxed out the bedroom ceiling height so 2" short of height for the tank so I had to strip out, strengthen and lower the horizonal joists down by 6", Extra work I didn't need but it will be worth it

Biggest progress was I've done a thing and finished a room, well maybe not a habitable room but a very useful storage space above the high side of the garage. These old houses have zero room for storage so we're forever tripping over junk

As it's above the garage first job was more insulation 6" PIR boards (=10.5" rockwool) between the joists, then 7/8" chipboard flooring with 3/4" chipboard ceiling/walls so it won't get damaged easily with all the junk that will get thrown up there

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1634941905.jpg

View is towards the bedroom faulted ceiling, the raised area in the far left is where the horizontal hot water cylinder will go

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1634941811.jpg

Access was going to be from the garage but a ladder up to the 20ft ceiling height would have been too scary a climb. Access is now from the garage end of the hall way through a ceiling hatch and up a neat telescopic loft ladder and then a home built staircase using left over flooring/joist off cuts for the finally ascent

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1634942109.jpg

Yesterday's job which I'm not proud of as it has all the build quality seen on trash TV instant make over home shows so will look like crap in a few months. To save the family and dog from getting trench foot this autumn/winter Mrs Ahab and I threw down 2 tons of hardcore and then 2 tons of decorative gravel on the driveway under the house and in front of the front porch entrance. The final 'real build quality' driveway is a job for another day as it will involve a lot more $'s and work

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1634942662.JPG

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1634943603.JPG

In other news, I've finally got around to ordering all 15 custom made windows, my bank account has taken a beating. They should arrive middle of next month but they'll need painting so I'll drip feed the fitting as and when they're ready

Best bit of news is I've got Mrs Ahab back after finishing her 'paid' building work at our neighbors. She's busy doing a major job which is causing me a bit of stress and worry. Her work is always is excellent but it's quite a tricky structural job involving large holes on the original old part of the house. I'll post an update in the next week or so as soon as I'm confident the house won't fall down

Thanks for the update and pics!
Are you nailing the stud walls together or using screws?
Driveway looks great!

Thanks Scott,

I'm an amateur so need to redo or move stuff about so it's eventually right so using screws :D

Driveway is a huge improvement, it's only temporary as I'll need to dig it up to lay all the services, rain water soakaway etc

Real driveway under the house will be smooth cobble stones/setts which Mrs Ahab wants to do, should look very special, Mrs Ahab has a very definite vision, this is as close a match as I could find

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1635029463.jpg

I'd like to make a wooden template to use to give the surface some curvature as if worn by 100's of years of wagon wheel traffic but that might be one step too far on creating the 'ye old' look

Screws work! I got a little experience using them when I helped my brother build his mezzanine in his big shop. He kept having to go get another box of them we used so many.

Over the years on the original part of the house I've made many small holes in the stone walls, turned window openings into doors, turned a door into a window but never made a 3.5ft wide x 7ft tall hole all the way through so this was unchartered waters for me :confused:

This new opening will connect up the original upstairs hallway (it's our bathroom at the moment) with the new build hallway

To make it that bit harder I only had access to work from the new side and not both sides. Also the wall is constructed of 2ft thick stone/mud and the opening is not in the middle of the wall but to one edge of the wall. This meant a 5ft wide overhang of wall or tons of house :eek: would need supporting before being able to fix in the structural lintels

First job was to gently remove enough external stone courses to give working access to the insides of the wall to remove all the loose stone and mud infill. That was easy as Mrs Ahab did this part of the job ;)

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1635114447.jpg

Then I needed to make a few pockets right through the full thickness of the wall, without breaking through the plastered internal finish. Only one way to do this, gently, tap/wiggle each stone until it was loose enough to remove, almost like wiggling out a loose tooth. With only dry dirt holding the stone in place it wasn't too bad going

Then I cemented in 4 sections (rusty brown bits in the picture) of 3" wide x 6" tall x 1/4" thick steel C channels.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1635114977.JPG

These supported the far side of the wall after removing the stone pillars next to the through pockets I'd made. The closest side of the wall had enough support just behind the roof timber to keep that side propped up but I always worked with a hefty prop just in case

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1635115133.JPG

Then Mrs Ahab and I (needed her strength) put in place a heavy 5ft long x 4" thick x 6" wide steel reinforced concrete lintel cemented in at each end. This is the first of four to cover the full thickness of the wall. I then cemented in stone above the lintel to put the structure back into the far side of the wall

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1635115297.JPG

I've now relaxed a bit as nothing has moved, there are no new cracks and that corner of the house is still standing :)

Whew !!!!

Your work on the outside has been so stellar that I forgot there was an inside!

Hey Captain how are you and your wife holding up physically? I don't know how you do it. I got a hernia from loading up a few truck loads of broken concrete sidewalk. :(

My thoughts exactly, kept thinking about the Miami Condo Collapse thread as I was doing the work :(

Thanks Rod, I have totally under estimate how much work the inside is, my builder let me in on a secret, 'you're only halfway there when the roof is done' I believe him!

We're doing pretty good thanks, building work is brutal, different parts of me hurt depending on what I've been doing, knee's are feeling it now, they're pretty beat up and bruised

Bad news on the hernia, I've got one too, might have been from all the external stone/block work or lifting joists/timbers, First noticed it when doing up my snowboard boot so it could have been then :confused:

Had mine fixed with some mesh, easy op, good as new and seems to be holding up fine

I have some stonework to do in my backyard. Do you rent out Mrs. Ahab?

She might fix up your backyard if you were to cover her travel expenses ;)

Another three 4" x 6" steel reinforced concrete lintels fitted and stone added above to make the the hallway opening wall all structurally sound again

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1636236325.jpg

My work on this is done so handed the job over to Mrs Ahab as the next stage need her 'Stone Whisperer' gentle touch. She carefully removed all the stone making up the near and far faces of the 2ft thick wall along with all the rubble mud fill in the middle

Ending up with another large pile of stone and equally large pile of rubble. Just when we thought we'd seen an end to building mountains

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1636236922.jpg

Now we have a really big slightly unfinished hole, only plaster and ceramic tiles are holding up the wall above the bathtub (white bit in the LH corner) so we need to be careful no one slips in the shower and falls out of the bathroom into the new build :eek:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1636237311.jpg

As Mrs Ahab is doing the stone work and I've saved some great looking pieces of stone, oak and a large flagstone I've got high hopes the hallway opening is going to be quite an impressive feature when done

At the other end of the 1st floor, the tall half of the master bedroom now looks like a room :cool: I'm enjoying plaster boarding, quite easy as it just some measuring, a bit of easy cutting and lots of screwing. Not much work to create a big visual difference

Ceiling boards between the joists are 3/8" or 9.5mm thick so nice and light to lift, wall boards are 1/2" or 12.5mm thick, a bit heavier at 50lbs or 25kgs a sheet but easily manageable for lifting

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1636237788.jpg

Other end of the high ceiling, had to lie down on the floor for this arty shot, doesn't look too bad considering it's all 'ye olde fakery' using oak left overs from the drive through ceiling and shed opening

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1636237971.jpg

Other side of the above wall, this is the very top room, need to build another insulated stud wall which will hide the soil pipe vent pipe.

I know a fully insulated internal wall doesn't make sense but it's part of a 'crazy idea' parallel project I'm trying to incorporate into the build in a 'while in your in there' kind of way :confused:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1636238175.jpg

Lastly, I've got two humongous slices of oak I'm itching to use which I think might be my next mini project while Mrs Ahab is busy working on the hallway knock through

With all that rock work, it occurred to me Mrs. Ahab doesn't need any other work out/exercise. In fact I don't think it would be a good idea for anybody to get into a major disagreement with her.

Just amazing!