brewdexta
The biggest tool in the box
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We have an outbuilding that is currently used as a potting shed that the wife wants to convert into an artist studio. I like the idea as I can move small component spraying into it, with suitable extraction. The wife has a few friends that paint but live in cramped accommodation, so the intention is to rent them the use of some space for beer money and use it ourselves.
Its a 2 storey building, originally built around 1914, I have the original plans, as a hennery/piggery. Upstairs was chickens, downstairs was two pig sties. The previous owner used it to keep goats so its always been called the goat house. My FiL says that we could convert if for him to live in so it could become the old goat house
The downstairs used to be my workshop when we first moved in around 2000, since then I built a barn and moved the workshop into there. I added a conservatory to the downstairs and that is now the wife's sewing room and office. So its just the upstairs we are converting. It needs some better steps, the current one are steep, there's a drain that overflows in a storm just above the steps. The drain is 6" and the grid can take the flow in all but the worst storms so I just need to make sure the new steps let the water pass. So I will make these out of stainless with a hand rail.
Inside, I had the walls "tanked" with plastic years ago, the lower floor is half underground, its not fully waterproof from any water pressure, but keeps the damp out and has been 100% successful over the last 20 years. The corrugated plastic is held in with plastic plugs/bungs that you can screw battens too. On the wall next to the road, I've boarded it out with 25mm kingspan between battens then covered in 9mm MR MDF. I have sufficient boards to do the rest.
From the door way. In the far let corner you can see a twin wall stove pipe. There's a stove in the wife's workshop below. That now has a radiator fed from the pellet boiler in the barn, I dug in some insulated pipe a couple of years ago. I also put in hot and cold water so can run that into the studio and add a radiator.
From the other direction
The windows are all uPVC double glazed. Apart from turfing out the spiders and the rest of the junk, the main bit of work before boarding it out is the roof beams. If I had infinite funds, I would take the roof off, put new timbers in, new felt and put the roof back on. However, my usual roofer is retiring, and others want a gold pig to re-roof it, but can only do it next year. My retiring roofer says that its not necessary to re-roof it, there's 25 years left in it, it just needs a bit of TLC. The roof is grey slate, i.e. big slabs of sandstone, so weighs a fair bit,
Apart from crap roofing felt, the non-breathing kind, there's some woodworm. I blasted it with lots of chemicals 20 years ago, and it hasn't go any worse so think I killed most/all of 'em, but the previous owners repair isn't conducive to an artists studio. He just put another timber under the one that was compromised by worm. Its about 6' 4" at the lowest point, I would like to get rid of the seconds beam to increase this.
The repair beam also caught worm
Here's a close up
The floor was also rotten, but I ripped that out and burned the lot 20 years ago and replace it with 10" x 2" tanalised and 22mm MDF T&G floorboards.
So, the plan is to replace both those timbers with one piece of either oak or steel. While I'm at it I'll clean the whitewash off the purlins and rafters to make sure they are good, they look ok but want to make sure. If they are shot then the roof does come off, but I may do it myself, with a bit of help from a builder friend. If not I will give them another dose of woodworm treatment. I would like to insulate the roof and panel it inside, but will need to make sure it doesn't sweat with that sub-optimal roof felt. There isn't any ventilation at the moment if I panelled it so will need to consider that.
Roofing advice welcome but lets keep the youtube vids down to sensible, relevant levels
Cheers
Andy
Its a 2 storey building, originally built around 1914, I have the original plans, as a hennery/piggery. Upstairs was chickens, downstairs was two pig sties. The previous owner used it to keep goats so its always been called the goat house. My FiL says that we could convert if for him to live in so it could become the old goat house
The downstairs used to be my workshop when we first moved in around 2000, since then I built a barn and moved the workshop into there. I added a conservatory to the downstairs and that is now the wife's sewing room and office. So its just the upstairs we are converting. It needs some better steps, the current one are steep, there's a drain that overflows in a storm just above the steps. The drain is 6" and the grid can take the flow in all but the worst storms so I just need to make sure the new steps let the water pass. So I will make these out of stainless with a hand rail.
Inside, I had the walls "tanked" with plastic years ago, the lower floor is half underground, its not fully waterproof from any water pressure, but keeps the damp out and has been 100% successful over the last 20 years. The corrugated plastic is held in with plastic plugs/bungs that you can screw battens too. On the wall next to the road, I've boarded it out with 25mm kingspan between battens then covered in 9mm MR MDF. I have sufficient boards to do the rest.
From the door way. In the far let corner you can see a twin wall stove pipe. There's a stove in the wife's workshop below. That now has a radiator fed from the pellet boiler in the barn, I dug in some insulated pipe a couple of years ago. I also put in hot and cold water so can run that into the studio and add a radiator.
From the other direction
The windows are all uPVC double glazed. Apart from turfing out the spiders and the rest of the junk, the main bit of work before boarding it out is the roof beams. If I had infinite funds, I would take the roof off, put new timbers in, new felt and put the roof back on. However, my usual roofer is retiring, and others want a gold pig to re-roof it, but can only do it next year. My retiring roofer says that its not necessary to re-roof it, there's 25 years left in it, it just needs a bit of TLC. The roof is grey slate, i.e. big slabs of sandstone, so weighs a fair bit,
Apart from crap roofing felt, the non-breathing kind, there's some woodworm. I blasted it with lots of chemicals 20 years ago, and it hasn't go any worse so think I killed most/all of 'em, but the previous owners repair isn't conducive to an artists studio. He just put another timber under the one that was compromised by worm. Its about 6' 4" at the lowest point, I would like to get rid of the seconds beam to increase this.
The repair beam also caught worm
Here's a close up
The floor was also rotten, but I ripped that out and burned the lot 20 years ago and replace it with 10" x 2" tanalised and 22mm MDF T&G floorboards.
So, the plan is to replace both those timbers with one piece of either oak or steel. While I'm at it I'll clean the whitewash off the purlins and rafters to make sure they are good, they look ok but want to make sure. If they are shot then the roof does come off, but I may do it myself, with a bit of help from a builder friend. If not I will give them another dose of woodworm treatment. I would like to insulate the roof and panel it inside, but will need to make sure it doesn't sweat with that sub-optimal roof felt. There isn't any ventilation at the moment if I panelled it so will need to consider that.
Roofing advice welcome but lets keep the youtube vids down to sensible, relevant levels
Cheers
Andy