Owner Built Garage

And She's In!

2011-02-22T16:31:00.002+11:00

There's the door...
Closer...
Tadaa!!
Now work!!

T's Studio Ready To Go!

2011-02-01T17:25:00.002+11:00

2010-12-07T09:09:00.003+11:00

T's studio just about done. Bits of laminate on the ground just to see what it looks like. I will put it down today if I can work it out. The instructions seem to be describing something unlike the flooring in the box...
A plaster mixer I made. A bit of angle iron with holes drilled, welded to a piece of rod.
And the last of the plastering! If I never do any more plastering it will be too soon!!! Remember the walls are double height in the centre and there are two mezzanines. That's a lot of Gyprock and a lot of joins to plaster for someone who essentially doesn't know what he's doing.

It ain't pretty...but it will be!

2010-08-31T04:43:00.003+10:00

"Why is he plastering in his pyjamas?" you ask.

Yes, I have been lazy but not completely!

2010-08-01T09:53:00.003+10:00

Insulation all finished in the walls.

Have Gyprocked most of Wife's studio down stairs - just need to borrow a panel lifter for the ceiling. And most of my area upstairs is done too. Hopefully a friend is lending said lifter next weekend. Then the sparky can come back and finish the power points and light switches.

A quick view of the outside to remind ourselves what it's all about.

Chairman of the Board

2010-06-11T07:20:00.002+10:00

Got a delivery of 76 sheets of plasterboard yesterday. Of course the delivery truck couldn't fit down the driveway, so the driver and I unloaded them outside the front gate (no crane on the truck). Then I had to put them on the trailer and take them down the driveway and unload them in the garage. After the first load an elderly neighbour (maybe late 70s) insisted on helping. After an hour or so of working and discussing his heart attack, back operation and watching him wheeze and sweat profusely in the the 5 degree (minus wind chill) temperature we were finally nearly finished. Just as we're about to unload the last sheet he tells me he's also got a pace maker which is due for replacement! He offered his help any other time I need it, but I'm not sure it's worth killing a neighbour just to build a garage!

Insulation going in the walls.

Don't be so insular

2010-06-08T20:36:00.002+10:00

How much would you pay for 30 bags of R3.5 insulation.? $1500? Maybe $800-$1000 on special? Well with a fortuitous convergence of Ebay and a national insulation oversupply, one can snaffle one's self a rusty trailer full of Chinese fiberglass for a princely hundred and fifty bucks!

It wasn't the most comfortable hour and a half on the freeway, but a bargains a bargain.

Can you dig it?

2010-05-11T12:31:00.002+10:00

Hired a trench digger last Monday so we can get power to the garage. Hired it for the day ($220) and shared it with Jim from round the corner who had a similar "shed needs power" situation.

"You see that yellow line there?"

"Yep."

"Well for God's sake turn!"

"Look Ma, one hand."
Tadar...one trench.
The sparky came on Thursday. I filled the trench on Friday afternoon/night to be ready for combined Wife's Birthday/Mother's day celerbrations on Saturday. You can tell how fast I was working by the picture above (nothing to do with the lack of light).

Architraves and Doors, Architraves and Doors, when will it end?

2010-03-22T13:03:00.002+11:00

A door on Tanya's studio - no actual walls, just a door.
Besides the drainage, pavers, retaining wall, garden bed and so on, you could just about call the front finished!

Painting French Doors

2010-03-09T00:11:00.003+11:00

After I fitted the doors I took them off again so I could paint the edges easier. While they were off I thought I might as well give both sides a coat as well. Then I realized I'd put the outside colour on both sides. Oh well...you can't have too much paint!

Installing French Doors

2010-03-08T12:41:00.003+11:00

Cutting down the doors and adding locks, handles and the like.

2009-11-07T11:47:00.003+11:00

Demonstrating amazing ability to balance scaffolding on head.
Demonstrating amazing ability to paint things I can't reach.
Demonstrating amazing ability to hire professionals to install roller doors.

Installing windows

2009-09-19T09:18:00.003+10:00

Now that the carpenter has finished, things have slowed considerably. I've started to (slowly) fit the windows. All the lower level ones are in. Now to plan a barbeque with the largest and strongest people we know to help get the upstairs windows...upstairs!

Bet you can't guess what happened here?! One small slip with a hammer, one giant bill from the glaziers.

Mezzanine railings and veranda ceiling lining

2009-09-09T21:59:00.003+10:00

The carpenter put up these railings just to to be safe and get passed the council inspection. I wanted him to just do frames like wall frames but he's tried to pretty them up a bit by putting the horizontal timber on the outside of the verticals. It does look nice but it means more work later on because eventually we want to cover them in either Gyprock or Miniorb. Also want to make a bridge from one mezzanine to the other so we only need one ladder up.

And besides a couple of little things that he's forgotten, that's it for the carpenter. Guess things'll be slowing down now!

Where for art thou...carpenter?

2009-09-04T23:35:00.003+10:00

This is a little balcony arrangement the carpenter set up so he could get the weatherboards on the higher sections without having to get scaffolding.

Here's a little hint of how cute it's gonna look when it's finished.

More Painting

2009-08-25T17:39:00.002+10:00

Here I am demonstrating my great affinity with heights!

Weatherboards

2009-08-09T23:50:00.002+10:00

Getting some paint on the higher boards before they go up.

Ta-daa...a roof!

2009-08-05T17:52:00.002+10:00

Mad Bastards!!

2009-08-05T14:13:00.003+10:00

Don't think there's any safety concerns here then! 7m up, leaning out, no harness. It's all fun and games till someone's head cracks like an egg on the concrete! Still, as long as we get a roof eh?

Gutters and barge boards

2009-08-03T15:31:00.001+10:00

Final shots of the roofless garage

2009-07-28T17:52:00.004+10:00

With any luck the Colourbond roof and guttering will arrive tomorrow. So as long as it doesn't rain the roof will be on by the end of this week or early next.

Then the weatherboards will arrive, some of which Wife and I will paint before they go up, to make things easier later.

The windows should arrive on Thursday. I get to put them in after the carpenter's done the weatherboards.
Then we have to organise the sparky to install the 2 million power points we want.

Battens up!

2009-07-24T11:01:00.003+10:00

The carpenters have promised to use safety harnesses when they put the corrugated iron (tin, colourbond, whatever you want to call it) on (even though they're carpenters not roofers). Apparently safety isn't an issue when they're balancing on a few bits of timber 7m above the concrete to put battens up...that's different somehow!?

The shock was too much for some.

The clowning continues!!

2009-07-16T17:43:00.001+10:00

Circus clowns juggling a ridge beam?!!

2009-07-15T17:44:00.003+10:00

Size isn't everything... but it is something!

2009-07-09T17:25:00.004+10:00

Gawd, it's gettin' big!!!
Not quite waterproof yet...

The veranda begins.

2009-07-08T18:05:00.003+10:00

Mezzanine # 2 (just your average garage!)

2009-07-07T18:31:00.003+10:00

The steel beam goes up

2009-07-02T12:51:00.003+10:00

This is a 7m long beam we had engineered. The original plans had a timber post holding up the left mezzanine floor which would have got in the way and annoyed us greatly! As far as I could find out the beam weighs about 35 kg per meter. The carpenter and his mate got this 245 kg lump down the driveway on the little black trolley you can just see in the foreground, then lifted it into place with a manual hoist.

The first of the two mezzanine floors goes up

2009-07-02T11:54:00.001+10:00

And higher!..or wider anyway.

2009-07-02T11:39:00.002+10:00

It rises from the ground!

2009-06-30T10:54:00.002+10:00

"Just hold this for a minute, I'm going to lunch."

Enough wood to make a garage...apparently

2009-06-24T16:22:00.001+10:00

Termite barrier

2009-06-22T12:38:00.004+10:00

Originally we were going to get an environmentally friendly Granitguard termite barrier (guaranteed for 50 years) . But everyone we talked to reckoned it was too expensive, a big job to install and you always have the crushed granite exposed. So we took everyone's advice and got this Kordon barrier. It's two pieces of plastic surrounding a chemical mesh. Should last at least 50 years (guaranteed for 10) and is still environmentally safe. It cost $639 installed including the certificate for Council.

A few good men and a concrete pump

2009-06-22T11:33:00.008+10:00

Concrete pump at the front of the house, pumping about 30m to the back.

Amazingly the formwork is removed in the afternoon of the same day. Jeff The Concreter alternates between using the helecoptery thing and covering the slab with plastic as the weather alternates between sunshine and rain. They started at 6:45 am and left about 5:30 in the almost dark.

The formwork, pumping and finishing was $10,312.

More formwork

2009-06-22T10:07:00.002+10:00

Does my slab look big in this?

2009-06-16T17:11:00.004+10:00

I've always imagined the garage as being kinda big, but seeing it now I'm not sure it's quite big enough!

Slight dramas with the building inspector. He reckoned the lie of the land was "inconsistent with the plans" and questioned the concreter as to the way he was doing the piering.

After much tutting and serious faces he signed the necessary bit of paper.

We'd also forgotten to send the notice to commence work but he let Wife sign on the spot.

And we didn't have the sign we should have had out the front of the house. When I got home from work, I had a look through the owner builder course material but could find nothing about the sign or what it should say. So I rang their free number but they couldn't help. So I rang the council (the body that requires the sign) and they couldn't tell me. So I rang the pedantic inspector who had demanded the sign and he wasn't sure. He suggested that I ring the concreter 'cos he'd just done some owner building! In the end I rang the council back and they arranged for their expert to ring me...

If you're still interested, all you need is your name, phone number and owner builder's license.

The big digger that couldn't

2009-06-16T16:26:00.006+10:00

Digging trenches and leveling was delayed over the weekend because when Jeff The Concreter measured his digger it became clear it wasn't gonna fit down the driveway. Anyway, all was ticketyboo when this cute little thing arrived on Monday.

Stumps out

2009-06-07T22:49:00.001+10:00

2009-05-25T18:27:00.000+10:00

Had to put this little fence up to stop Sally (the elderly Jack Russell) wondering off. We've since taken it down but she's decided she doesn't want to go that far anyway.

Taking down the main fence I'd forgotten about all the bricks I'd buried to build the area up.

Fence out

2009-05-24T13:21:00.000+10:00

Removing the fence we put up a few years ago.

Trees begone

2009-05-22T09:37:00.000+10:00

Chainsawing one the plum trees that must be sacrificed, bwa ha ha ha ha!

The view from the deck to where "The Garage" will be. Have already taken the chain saw to the bushy tree thing, the remains of which can be seen between the slippery dip and the agapanthus.