Project - 37a (Wendyhouse)

Steveocee · 27 Jun 2015 at 20:22

I'll give some background to this story.....
We lived in a 3 bed semi, my PC was in the front room and a brick shed which used to house my DIY server rack. We've now moved very close to my work and the house we bought was perfect apart from the living room is narrower so there is no room for my PC and there is no brick shed for my rack.

I did a lot of looking around at garden pods, conservatories, brick extensions and through various reasons none were workable. Fortunately thanks to a well placed family member I have found my answer! A brick built shed split into 2, half for storage and half as a home office to house my PC, rack and a chill out area for the adults.

Probably looking at about a 3 month lead time on getting it completed due to it being a "weekender" but at least that gives me plenty of time ready myself for it.

Name of project:
37a (for me as it's my home from home at home)
Wendyhouse (what the Mrs refers to it as)

Steveocee · 27 Jun 2015 at 20:23

A few pictures from earlier this week, the blank canvas if you would.

Steveocee · 27 Jun 2015 at 20:28

Friday evening was spent carefully taking the greenhouse down.

Steveocee · 27 Jun 2015 at 20:28

The day after the mini digger rolled in. In the region of 20 tonnes has come out to leave this.

Steveocee · 4 Jul 2015 at 19:54

After the early morning horrifically massive thunder storm I woke up to some what of a pool this morning.

Fair do's to the lads doing this for me, whilst waiting for the concrete they got buckets out and started baling out.

30-45 mins later

I also decided that a 7950 crossfire was "so last year" and upgraded the PC so when I move in I'll be running this

Steveocee · 5 Jul 2015 at 15:00

skaif said:
Also looking forward to seeing how this turns out. Have always wanted to make something similar! What have you budgeted for the while build if you don't mind me asking?

I'm working to £10k for the build itself including internal finishing and the electrical hookup.

Decoration, internal furniture and other things of beauty I fill it with are "non budget able" but I won't be spending the Earth on it. I've already been pacing B&Qs locally as near where they mix paint they almost always have a clearance section of paint that is off shade so I'm kind of bargain hunting for it.

Steveocee · 19 Jul 2015 at 02:54

Next stage of the footing and groundwork completed today. It went a little deeper than expected but it'll be made up in the next week. It also ended up a good 300mm longer than expected, I was given a "rough" size a few months ago and today I was earwigging the sizes and it's wider so a bit more room to use internally.

Steveocee · 23 Jul 2015 at 17:42

Small non photographic update.
Started pulling the 3 cat5's in this afternoon. I've discovered 20mm rigid conduit can fit 4 cables however flexible 20mm conduit can barely just get 3 into it with a fight. This has annoyed me a bit but seeing how I've already bought the conduit I'm just going to run 3 cables not 4 (means 1 spare rather than 2).

Steveocee · 23 Jul 2015 at 19:03

Brian18741 said:
***must resist urge to build mancave!!!***

Man I love these, I would love the opportunity to build one!

This was my condition of buying the house, the others we looked at had integrated computer rooms but the house we chose didn't but has a lovely big kitchen and was £10k cheaper.

My condition was a man cave for £10k based on that saving.

Steveocee · 23 Jul 2015 at 22:03

Brian18741 said:
I like the way you operate Steve! What sort of time frame do you expect to complete the works? Can't wait to see the finished product!

The builders are doing the work on their weekends for me so I was told 8-10 weeks. So far they've done 3 working weekends on it and I think they'll be on good track to be done in time.

Once built it will probably be a few weeks more until I've decked it out and fully moved in.

Between now and then I have some stuff I have to sort for example in house networking so I can patch the cave in.

Steveocee · 25 Jul 2015 at 06:13

Another non photographic update from yesterday:
Network cable is now pulled all the way up to the house, the conduit was a real nightmare to use but the cables are in now, I've turned the network on it's head to get where I am but it'll work for me for now. Just need a ladder to get it trunked up the wall and into the attic.

Satellite cable is also run with network cable, I can't put an aerial on the shed as it would then class as a dwelling however I have a disused sky mini dish on the house so have run coax down from that as I have a freesat box I wanted to make use of in the cave.

Should have a really good update end of today (providing the blocks turn up).

Steveocee · 25 Jul 2015 at 15:26

So the blocks have turned up on time (for once) and a fair bit of progress has been made!

The "gap" on the right hand wall is where 1 window will go

Face on to the window

The blue brick standing up is where the dividing wall will go, should be enough room for a decent cave

Internals

And I now have all network cables trunked down to the cave (awaiting going into the attic though) along with the satellite cable. Just waiting for a sparky to get the cable down and then they will all get buried together.

As I'm off this week on paternity duties I'm going to try and get the network cabling finished off and in as I have some the other side of the house that needs finishing as well.

Steveocee · 26 Jul 2015 at 08:07

Brian18741 said:
Looks great! I'm sure it was already mentioned but what's going in the other side of the partition?

Thank you

The other half is going to be a brick storage shed. I had toyed with having it all as office but there is a practical voice in my head.

Steveocee · 26 Jul 2015 at 08:08

Multi post can a mod delete please?

Steveocee · 26 Jul 2015 at 10:14

smogsy said:
good luck!, can almost guarantee you will go over budget, you will do what i done and see something you want and buy it , heck i spent on 1k on insulation... its the little things you forget..

Thank you, it was your cave that lit this fuse in my mind and a great inspiration.

Currently I think I'm gonna go £1k over without having "moved in" but I'm going to see how it goes. I may have saved a small bit by having a step down into it rather than spending out an a few extra tonnes of stone we hadn't accounted for.

Steveocee · 1 Aug 2015 at 15:43

Another full day on the cave today; Outer skin is pretty much completed now with window and door holes. Roof will start to make an appearance next weekend (providing it doesn't hammer it down).

Yes the floor is yet to go down and I think the plan is it will go in week after next (once roof is on)

Network cables down to it get there own appreciation image, if you look at the window (top right of image) the gutter is only just above it, internally there is a foot and a half to ceiling height, naturally this means a large cavern from the attic to the gutter and it was an emotional 5 hours threading the cable in! However the fit is brilliant now and the solid conduit (20mm or 3 cat5's) fits beautiful inside the 20mm hole.

The building site

My sidegate and wall had to be chopped out to get the digger in and it's been a very non-private few weeks with the side of the house wide open. Today we also got the wall re-built (to be rendered). Gate will hang next weekend and another coarse on top of the existing one as it would have been unsafe to lay it today.

Finally, a 25mm solid conduit onto the front of the house from attic down to level with the existing hole, this will house 4 cat5 cables going into the attic patch panels. This will be the feed for the man cave (with spare) and to the poe switch for house AP's. Fascia not drilled yet as I didn't have the emotional well being to go another 5 hours trying to thread more cables. The cable coming down the roof is the current cat5 to my receiving gear. This cable is being moved to the attic patch panel as well so the cable won't be cable tied to the back of the drain pipe. In time I'd like to re-do the cable run as I didn't run it originally and I'm not too happy as some of the tie downs have come out.

Steveocee · 3 Aug 2015 at 18:56

Tattysnuc said:
Top work - quickie regarding your groundwork - roughly how deep & wide are the concrete footings?

I'm planning a shed for my motorbike and it's about this size

Massively overkill was the general consensus once they were dug! In fairness they're about 300mm deep by about 500-600 wide in the shallower parts and about 600mm deep where the driver went a bit OTT. A few comments were passed that new builds are built on these dimension footings.

Steveocee · 5 Aug 2015 at 16:06

Protoype said:
Did you need planning permission and stuff for this build?

Nope.
It falls into the planning exemption (permitted development) for my local council.

Steveocee · 8 Aug 2015 at 16:26

Todays update, unfortunately not much to look at, in fact it's nearly heartbreaking how little it has changed!
Internal skin is starting to come up now with the insulation in the cavity.

Only other lesson to come from today is don't drill outwards in on hammer with a 25mm bit :-\ huge mess on my living room wall and its took a fair bit of plaster off, fortunately it's behind the TV so it'll be filled and painted over and then cat5 faceplated.

Steveocee · 9 Aug 2015 at 09:45

P4Clock said:
No damp cause? Have you have the cowboys round?

There will be DPC. I'm no builder so wouldn't have a clue where it goes but I know they are doing it in he next couple of weeks. There's still 4 tonnes of stone and insulation to go down in the flooring so I'm guessing it will go I there somewhere.