Workshop build epic

[Farmer Giles]

Back in 2002 we moved from London to the north, selling our terraced house and buying farm "in need of repair". Every stick of timber except for 4 pitch pine beams were replaced and part of the roof, and the floor was flags on plain old earth so that had to come up and part of an old fire grate was used as a wall plate etc. etc. We also knocked though into the attached barn to make a bigger lounge and an extra bedroom for the planned family so my workshop space was no more.

I renovated a small outbuilding, again, woodworm and rot however it was too small, I couldn't get timber into a bandsaw and a table saw was out of the question. So in 2005 we had finished the driveway and I quickly put my claim in for a proper workshop before any more jobs came my way.

Here's the site before construction back in Feb 2005. The building was the old workshop downstairs, and upstairs was feed for pigs and chickens. You can see a vertical bit of timber in the foreground, that was to assess the approximate fall of the land.

This is the other direction showing the puny level/laser I used, I had to wait until it was dark to find the mark. This is not the only survey we did, but it was good enough for the high level diagrams we used to get planning permission.

Here's another view showing the slope of the site a bit more, I've always wanted a cellar so we thought we would use the slope to our advantage.

Next, initial construction.

Cheers
Andy

 

[Farmer Giles]

After a break for our first daughter and the usual planning delays, construction started in April 2008, the good news is that the 3 years allowed me to save up and I also acquired some stone and steel very cheaply. I got 90% of the steel for the same price as the remaining 10%. An old warehouse was being knocked down nearby and I got most of the steel at scrap value and a mate of mine was digging his field and unearthed and old collapsed outbuilding which provided most of the stone plus I bought some from a local mill demolition.

Can you see what it is yet? I haven't got any pictures of the excavation to hand, however this is a picture from the stone bit. Note we placed a lot of the steel on the container roof to hinder the light fingered persons, it made the container doors a bit stiff to close!

And here's a side view, the other side is almost completely into the hillside. The builder is trying to show he know how to use a level

The doors are now cellars, the left one is my microbrewery, the right is general gardening tools etc. for now. You can see the steel before it goes to the fabricators

Next - the steel framed bits

Regards
Andy

 

[Baldhead]

Andy I really wish I was younger and fitter because I would have loved doing something like this, looking forward to the next instalment.

Baldhead

 

[Farmer Giles]

It took most of the summer and autumn to get the foundations dug for the stanchions and get the steel work fabricated however once we start assembling it then it went up in a couple of weekends. This is from late October, early November 2008. My job was digging the foundations for the columns, filling them with concrete and placing very large bolts into them in waxed cones to allow for "minor" adjustments later. All the fabrication and steel erection was subbed out.

The first floor is Kingspan metaldeck, effectively a big corrugated galvanised steel pan full of reinforced concrete, so the main workshop bit is suspended.

Mostly done, just need the roof and panelling on, and a big slab of concrete underneath, and the retaining walls etc. etc.

next - if I can find the pics, the panelling and roof

Cheers
Andy

 

[Farmer Giles]

Andy I really wish I was younger and fitter because I would have loved doing something like this, looking forward to the next instalment.

Baldhead

If I left it any later I wouldn't have done it either, we renovated our last two houses but it was nothing compared to this, we travelled from London every weekend for over 2 years to work on it before we moved into the house. We used to set off back to London at 2:00am Monday so we could slip past the M25 before it got busy, drop off the car at home then go straight to work. I took a 4 month sabbatical from work to finish off the main bits where we had contractors but the majority we did ourselves. The barn/workshop was mainly big heavy stuff and new construction so we had one builder and the fabricators/cladding guys plus a lot of help from the farmer next door who has loads of big machines but the rest we did ourselves. Good fun but hard work

 

[Farmer Giles]

I've found a couple of pics on laptop of the start of the cladding, the rest will have to wait until Friday when I get home.

The steel framed bit and the roof of the stone bit is covered in 50mm insulated Kingspan cladding, most of the downstairs apart from the first 5m will not be cladded as this is used for traditional barn purposes, tractors. trailers, over-wintering of animals et.c., the whole of the steel framed area will then be covered in "Yorkshire boarding" to make if blend in with other barns.

Roof in progress in April 2009

Cheers
Andy

 

[Woodmonkey]

Blimey that's going to be some workshop!

 

[nathandavies]

that's going to be a beautiful workshop. Hope you've got some nice big woodworking machines to fill it.

 

[Farmer Giles]

it is already filled! That was back in 2009, it was water tight by end 2009 and I've been filling it with stuff ever since. More picks to come.

 

[Charlie Woody]

Really looking forward to seeing more of this. It seems a huge project!

 

[Farmer Giles]

The next stages are harder to visualise as another ankle biter arrived and not long after we all went to work away for a year so the house and projects were semi-moth balled but some work did continue slowly however I have few photos, not as many as I wished. The cladding of the upstairs and a quarter of the downstairs was completed and retaining walls were added in block-work in preparation for facing stone.

Here's a picture of the side of the barn showing the block-work with ties sticking out ready for stone, unfortunately its Jan 2010 and its snowing heavily. You can also see the underside of the metal deck that holds the concrete 1st floor

This photo is looking the opposite way and shows the insulated cladding we used. This was confined to the roof and the upstairs of the steel framed part of the building except the first quarter of the downstairs.

The following photo shows the cladding only extending to both floors on the first 5 metre bay.

And now a big jump to today, all the barn retaining walls have been faced in stone and the cladding covered in Yorkshire boarding, effectively two layers of tanalised planks offset by 50%. The gap allows air to circulate but stops heavy drafts and most of the rain, perfect for animals. it also covers the cladding which is incongruous up in the Pennines and was a condition of the planning.

We finished the Yorkshire boarding in early 2013.

Next - the inside.

Cheers
Andy

 

[Tierney]

Very impressive.

DT

 

[hanser]

Very very nice!

 

[morfa]

Looks really nice.

 

[billybuntus]

Very nice and I do hope you appreciate the space (envious). I'd be over the moon with a quarter of that space. Most impressive.

 

[n0legs]

What a beauty of a workshop =D>
Sir I am jealous.



N0legs is now going away to sulk

 

[Farmer Giles]

Thanks guys
I do appreciate the extra space however you will be surprised how it fills with junk rapidly!

Before we get on to the workshop proper, firstly the most important bit, the brewery. I've always brewed beer and until recently I was using a Burco "nappy" boiler and made 5 gallon batches. Well a mate convinced me I should move up to a "nano" brewery. Not quite a micro-brewery, its the size used by many for prototyping new beers. First clear out all the crud from one of the down stair cellars

Then paint it out and tile the floor

The fit the brewery, most of this is home made from 100 litre catering pots

Finally brew some beer and serve it via a tap on the barn wall using an old oak floor board off-cut

Cheers
Andy

 

[nathandavies]

Bloody hell farmer giles. can we please see some tools and saw dust. (although a pint would be nice)

 

[tbone]

Very very very nice.

 

[Farmer Giles]

First some floor plans. At the moment its a mess, I'm in the middle of several jobs that will clear the workshop up, plus I'm about to give away a huge pile of old PCs and other IT stuff to a charity that will free up a large space and I have all sorts of junk to cull.

Current floorplan, with lots of junk missing,

And how it will be once I've moved the tractor downstairs, built a partition wall, finished the toylander for the kids and built a roubo bench and ........

May take a while

The workshop is roughly divided into a metalwork side and a woodworking side, I've been working on lots of metal recently and not done a lot of woodwork since finishing the house, however I have a lot of jobs piling up and I'm in the process of fixing or replacing my woodworking tools.

Next - tool pics

Cheers
Andy