Hi Folks, back again!
Last year I decided to take up woodworking as a hobby and thought I'd start with a workshop build as my first project to practice my craft in.
The Mrs was so impressed, she said it'd be a good idea to build a little log cabin for the kids, somewhere they could go with their friends so they were out of the house but off the streets.
I had intending to build it in the summer but due to having a patio laid and receiving a bonus at work, I decided to move it forward to last week. The builders had just finished laying a patio for us and I asked they dig out foundations for 21 pad stones. Our friendly builder also loaned me his Leica laser lever so that I could bed my padstones in completely level, this made a massive difference to using the old spirit level, anyway here is the area I had planned to build, foundations for padstones in, just prior to nipping off to B&Q for some more concrete blocks.
I picked the worst week to take holiday, the forecast was set for rain every day that week, so my plan was to erect the frame, cover with house wrap, get the roof on and then I could work on the inside when the weather was bad and work outside during breaks in the rain.
I was particularly fortunate on the Monday & Tuesday, despite having rain, wind, hail, snow and on top of that managed to get sunburned however I managed to get the frame up reasonably quickly.
I'd used 2x4's for the frame and the floor, My aim was to further reinforce the floor and the frame once the cabin was wrapped and roof was on, by the end of day one (after rain stopped play) I had been left with this, I had just placed the rafters on ready to attache Tuesday morning, bizarrely 5 minutes after my father in law left, the sun came out.
Day 2 went off with a flying start, I got the rafters nailed down and had acquired some UPVC french doors (for free) and managed to pick up a couple of UPVC windows for £150. Fitting these proved quite challenging due to the weight, my Father in law is in his late 60's and struggled a bit, unfortunately I had no-one else to help so I was very grateful. I had one 'Doh' moment when we hung the door on the wrong side, my wife had been watching us on the security cameras and (apparently) knew straight away what we had done, weird how she didn't come out to point it out when she comes out at every other opportunity to point out the slightest thing that might be wrong...... :roll:
So, by the end of day two the cabin was wrapped and windows and doors were in.
We had battened and had started cladding too!
By the end of day three, we'd pretty much clad the whole exterior (bar the back wall) and added a bit more support internally, we'd also attached the roof and felted it. Congratulating ourselves on a job well done and the fact we'd be able to finish it off in the dry we finished for the day
Day 4 & 5 seemed to drag on and on, this was the fiddly bit of insulating and reinforcing the floor suitable for teenagers to bounce around on, when I built my workshop last year I was surprised there was a little bit of flex on the 18mm OSB so this time I made sure every inch was supported, I ended up putting in some more padstones. We really ached at the end of this from being hunched over for such long periods of time, so it was a welcome break to start Celotexing the walls and ceiling.
Last year I decided to take up woodworking as a hobby and thought I'd start with a workshop build as my first project to practice my craft in.
The Mrs was so impressed, she said it'd be a good idea to build a little log cabin for the kids, somewhere they could go with their friends so they were out of the house but off the streets.
I had intending to build it in the summer but due to having a patio laid and receiving a bonus at work, I decided to move it forward to last week. The builders had just finished laying a patio for us and I asked they dig out foundations for 21 pad stones. Our friendly builder also loaned me his Leica laser lever so that I could bed my padstones in completely level, this made a massive difference to using the old spirit level, anyway here is the area I had planned to build, foundations for padstones in, just prior to nipping off to B&Q for some more concrete blocks.
I picked the worst week to take holiday, the forecast was set for rain every day that week, so my plan was to erect the frame, cover with house wrap, get the roof on and then I could work on the inside when the weather was bad and work outside during breaks in the rain.
I was particularly fortunate on the Monday & Tuesday, despite having rain, wind, hail, snow and on top of that managed to get sunburned however I managed to get the frame up reasonably quickly.
I'd used 2x4's for the frame and the floor, My aim was to further reinforce the floor and the frame once the cabin was wrapped and roof was on, by the end of day one (after rain stopped play) I had been left with this, I had just placed the rafters on ready to attache Tuesday morning, bizarrely 5 minutes after my father in law left, the sun came out.
Day 2 went off with a flying start, I got the rafters nailed down and had acquired some UPVC french doors (for free) and managed to pick up a couple of UPVC windows for £150. Fitting these proved quite challenging due to the weight, my Father in law is in his late 60's and struggled a bit, unfortunately I had no-one else to help so I was very grateful. I had one 'Doh' moment when we hung the door on the wrong side, my wife had been watching us on the security cameras and (apparently) knew straight away what we had done, weird how she didn't come out to point it out when she comes out at every other opportunity to point out the slightest thing that might be wrong...... :roll:
So, by the end of day two the cabin was wrapped and windows and doors were in.
We had battened and had started cladding too!
By the end of day three, we'd pretty much clad the whole exterior (bar the back wall) and added a bit more support internally, we'd also attached the roof and felted it. Congratulating ourselves on a job well done and the fact we'd be able to finish it off in the dry we finished for the day
Day 4 & 5 seemed to drag on and on, this was the fiddly bit of insulating and reinforcing the floor suitable for teenagers to bounce around on, when I built my workshop last year I was surprised there was a little bit of flex on the 18mm OSB so this time I made sure every inch was supported, I ended up putting in some more padstones. We really ached at the end of this from being hunched over for such long periods of time, so it was a welcome break to start Celotexing the walls and ceiling.
