A garden project for my better half.

[Sheptonphil]

After spending last summer building my new workshop, I have now embarked on a summerhouse for he good lady.
After looking at various designs, she had her mind set on a pyramid roofed open fronted summerhouse. We have a corner of the garden which lent itself to a 6m x 4m structure, so I put in for planning permission. We have no permitted development here so everything has to go to planning. It’s no great hardship and it does mean I don’t have to keep to height and size restrictions of PD.

Starting out with a rather untidy corner which we planned to have this summerhouse here so never tidied it up.

the garden is slightly sloped and this is going to be built on 500mm deep concrete piles. Bedrock is 350mm below the surface.

Main uprights bolted to the anchors set into the piles With 6x2 frame let into the tops of the 5” posts.

Corner braces made from 6x2 for each joint

Setting out the joists and setting in a mid width support with joist hangers. Support has six supports 400mm concreted into the ground

Temporary support for the ridge beam before adding commons and hips

 

[Sheptonphil]

Now finished the roof skeleton with the Jack rafters cut and fitted.

 

[robgul]

That's a LOT of timber! - looks good so far . . . are you going to lay an inch or two of gravel on the weed membrane to keep it in place if anything does try to grow through it?

Looking forward to seeing the next stage.

 

[Sheptonphil]

I have a dumpy bag of crushed slate.
more wood turned up thursday

200 lengths of Tg&v for roof sarkin and inside back wall, 10 more 6x2 for decking to go in front and to left, 40 cls for stud walls and 100 shiplap for back and two sides. £2200!

 

[Cabinetman]

Nice job, how are you holding/ fastening the rafters down onto the walls?

 

[Sheptonphil]

Nice job, how are you holding/ fastening the rafters down onto the walls?

Rafters are skew nailed with paslode to set them in place, and then steel truss clips. The wall plates are slotted into the 5x5 uprights And bolted through.

 

[Sheptonphil]

A bit more forward, studs for the rear walls, gutter brackets, and the first four rows of roof boarding all round ready to take membrane and shingles.

Working off ladders, it’s three trips up and down different ladders along the side for each cut, scaffold really wouldn’t work for three sides anyway, so I’ll stick to the ladders. Ive now got four decent ones, so access really isn’t difficult. As another solo project, it’s a case of just working slow and steady to stay safe.

 

[Sheptonphil]

A really hot one to be working on the roof boarding, but plodding on steady to get the front and right side boarded.
weekend off then back on the case Monday.

 

[MickCheese]

That’s looking amazing.

Mick

 

[JDW]

Looking really good, you've done this before. I really like the corner supports, they give the building character. I look forward to seeing the final build.

 

[Sheptonphil]

No, never built anything like this before, the cut roof was a fair bit more complex than I had imagined it was going to be.

Bit more progress, boarding finally finished and membrane under cloak added befor the rains came over the weekend. I’ll make some plugs for the 16mm fixing holes in the corner braces.

then onto the shingles today for the finished roof on two side. The other two to do over the next couple of days before the scaffold gets picked up.

This is the firs project I’ve attempted anything like this, so as much thought as I can put in, I still come across ‘ should have thought about that before’ scenarios. The roof pitch I chose of 30degrees was a little steeper than I am comfortable on without a safety rope.

 

[Sheptonphil]

That’s looking amazing.

Mick

Thanks, it’s actually turning out better than I thought it would.

 

[sumo2001]

Looking really good

 

[Sheptonphil]

A tad more progress, all the shingles on, hips and ridge cap shingles finally added all round So roofing finally finished and water tight. Gutter fitted all way round with no outlet yet, so I can check levels after the rain that’s forecast for tonight which should fill the guttering.
The membrane on the outside of the structure is started with three of the six sections to be boarded covered. Got to pick up more counter battens tomorrow and get the membrane finished before the weekend.
I never work on it weekends, give the neighbours a break from my banging and nail gun. It’s all down hill from here I think.

 

[Jameshow]

Looks marvelous!

Far cry from my covid outdoor meeting shelter!

Cheers James

 

[Cabinetman]

That’s looking really good! More than a little look of Japan to my eyes.

 

[robgul]

For the downpipes on the guttering consider the "length of chain" idea . . . . you can use cheap black plastic chain with fairly large links. Looks good and not too obvious.

Google "rainwater chain" for some pix

 

[Sheptonphil]

That’s a wrap for this week.

All the membrane and counter battens on, guttering levelled on the two brackets that needed altering.

making the edge trims for the shiplap over the weekend. Rather than the boards butting up to a corner trim, I’m going to rebate edge trims to sit over the board ends, going to look a lot neater.

 

[Sheptonphil]

For the downpipes on the guttering consider the "length of chain" idea . . . . you can use cheap black plastic chain with fairly large links. Looks good and not too obvious.

Google "rainwater chain" for some pix

Oh great, that’s been and done it, thanks!

She has looked at rainwater chains, and would now like the long chain of bells hanging from the right hand corner near the planter. Recons it’s going to be a ‘lovely feature’.

So instead of a simple connection to the garage down pipe behind the summerhouse, I now have to break into the soak away eight feet away.

anymore bright ideas, can you please PM them to me?

 

[Sheptonphil]

Another week and a little further forward. A lot of the work doesn’t show as it’s around the back as well. Corner profile trims made to cover shiplap ends, and two sides shiplapped. Mix up with the delivery meant the remaining boards to clad the back didn’t arrive till Thursday instead of Monday, so I skipped jobs and started deck framing. The front deck supports made and concreted in. This will give a 750mm deck step to the front, leading to a completely decked area to the left of summerhouse to house the BBQ.

I can have the side deck either level with the front deck, 75mm below summerhouse level, or level with the summerhouse, 75mm step up from the front deck. Undecided which way to build that bit yet.