# Shedzilla - my summer project



## PerryGunn

I started this build at the end of June and the idea took root because my garage felt like was getting a bit crammed with car, tools, garden furniture/equipment and other stuff - you get an idea in this pic









So I decided that a shed to use as a workshop and for storage would be a good idea but, me being me, a boring 6x8 box from B&Q wouldn't quite cut it as a challenge  I also had an awkward triangular area behind the garage that was used as a general dumping ground and thought that it would be a good idea to incorporate that as well. In addition my next-door neighbour has been saying that she'll replace her eyesore of a fence for about five years and we've got a bit fed up with looking at it so I thought that I could kill two birds with one stone by hiding her fence…

I checked with our local planning dept and was told that I could build virtually any sort of shed I wanted - main restrictions I had to abide by was eaves height because it was within 1m of the boundry and keeping under a certain total square meterage if I wanted to avoid the building regs people being involved

I started off with foundations just inside the fence plus a rectangle of roughly 2.9m x 2.6m of shed area and added a few courses of engineering bricks to make a dwarf wall base - the long wall of the shed that runs alongside the fence worked out as roughly 7.3m (24 feet  )


















Block wall across the rear path around the garage 









Then added some DPC and bolted 4x2 sole plates to the top of the dwarf wall to fix the shed walls to









Part of what I wanted to do was build a new fence inside our boundary so I wanted to make the neighbour's side of the shed wall look nice. The added complication was that I wanted to do all this without disturbing her fence so the 7.3m section of wall was built as a standalone single piece of 4x2 studwork, clad with 12mm ply and featheredged on the neighbour's side









This was then manhandled (by 8 of us) into place and secured. I built the rest of the non-shed wall 'fence' in the same way so that it matches nicely. 
Added wall plates to take the suspended wooden floor and started on the other walls of the shed - again 4x2 studwork with a 12mm ply skin - you can see the way the ply skin overlaps the dwarf wall


















Angled studs at the top of the right-hand wall are to allow for a dual pitch roof with an off-centre ridge. I checked with a friend who's a roofer and he said that because of the solid wall and it being attached to the garage, there'd be no need for gussets or collar ties to stop spreading









Once all the walls were up, rafters were added and the walls were covered with breathable membrane









Then it was time to start adding 2 layers of 12mm ply for a roof - I would have used a single layer of 18mm ply for the roof and floor but, as I was using 12mm to skin the inside and outside walls, I decided that there would be less wastage to order 12mm for everything and use 2 layers for roof and floor (nice and solid :lol: )









Then add a layer of non-breathable membrane to the roof as a temporary covering until the torch-on felt goes on. This also shows where the 'fence' part has now been featheredged on our side - with 4x2 studs, a 12mm ply skin and featheredge on each side the fence ended up nearly 6" thick and I had to custom-make a capping rail from 6x2 timber :lol: 









Popped in a couple of double-glazed windows and a upvc door. The felt underlay and first of the torch-on layers were added to the roof to weatherproof it. Added the timber detailing around the windows/door and corners and started featheredging









Featheredging all finished, and upvc facia added









My roofter friend came round and we managed to get the torch-on felt on the shed and garage. We also replaced all the old, rotten wooden facia boards with solid pvc rot-proof boards that should last longer than I will - removing the old felt from the garage was a right royal pain in the bum as whoever put on the original felt omitted the underlay and bonded the first layer direct to the wooden roof boards, this meant that removal of the old felt took a lot longer than estimated GRR!

Still, an early start meant that we managed to complete the job by mid afternoon and still had time to get the guttering and drainage pipework in place










The drainage pipework was interesting as the original guttering on the rear of the garage had a downpipe that went straight into the ground and ran under the garden before joining the sewer system. I didn't fancy digging trenches to follow the run and reroute so I used a diamond core drill to take the pipework through the engineering brick wall (a slow and laborious process), and ran it under the floor to join the original pipework - luckily water doesn't need much of a fall as space was tight










All the pipework was sealed with internal beads of silicon and then left overnight to set - the bricks are there to keep everything in place while the silicon goes off. The following day, I tested with lots of water and no leaks - which was nice

Then it was a case of adding some additional joists and noggins to fill in the gap I'd left to make working on the pipework easier and fill the last gap in the first layer of the floor










Starting to get an idea of the internal space now even though only the back half has had its second layer of ply. At this point I ran out of ply so the rest of the floor is going to have to wait until next weekend - I just settled for adding a few scrap pieces as a temporary second layer over the pipework area as I don't want any flexing that could potentially disturb the pipes.










As I couldn't finish the floor, I decided to put in the doorstep - a single course of engineering bricks infilled with some nice strong concrete










Once the concrete had gone off enough, I topped the step with a nice, thick slab of mineral-rich slate - it's got lots of iron in which oxidises giving large golden-brown patches. It's hard to see the colours in the photo I acid-washed the slate a couple of times before using it and it's still wet from rinsing off the acid










Barring work-related emergencies, next weekend should see the floor finished and some large fluorescent lights installed - after that I've promised SWMBO that I'll ease off and leave the rest of the interior fit-out until after the winter (unless I get bored )


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## Guru

Kewl project. Nicely finished off.


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## shudaman

Awasome mate, looks top qulity!
Love the use of space there its nice to see its not wasted!
Can i ask y u pyed the outside walls as well, that back wall must have weighed a tonn! Good call on covering it first!

Look forward to the inside updates!


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## gca3n

very nice work


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## PerryGunn

shudaman said:


> Can i ask y u pyed the outside walls as well, that back wall must have weighed a tonn! Good call on covering it first!


I'm adding rockwool insulation between the skins and I wanted to make sure that it's as weatherproof as possible so the insulation doesn't get damp. If I'd left it as just featheredge and membrane, water would have found its way in at some point, the wbp ply with beads of silicone at the joints should make it much more weatherproof

And, yes, it was bloody heavy - 8 big blokes and it was still a struggle lifting and manoeuvring it into position


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## James Bagguley

That is awesome! what a mighty project, surely the classification can be upped from shed to, supercoolmancavedetailingstorage annexe? or something? 

Shedzilla is way more snappy though (chortle) By the way, also have to say your no nonsense avatar is stupendous :thumb:


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## dandam

Cracking, looks great :thumb:


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## PerryGunn

This weekend was fun...

Saturday saw the installation of 3 x 5ft fluorescent lights, each takes two 58w tubes so it's very bright inside - from outside the windows glow like Chernobyl just before the meltdown.... this took a large chunk of the day as I'm a bit anal about avoiding any twists in the T&E, getting it all clipped down neatly along the rafters and labelling the cables at the junction boxes. I also added a PIR-switched external light so that I can avoid falling over the doorstep in the dark  and a temporary double mains socket taken from the garage - It'll get a full ring with plenty of sockets when the inside fit-out is finished in the spring

On Sunday I was supposed to be helping a mate to render the outside of the block wall to waterproof it - I'd be knocking-up, he'd do the skilled bit  - but monsoon conditions soon put paid to that idea so, with the aid of my step-son and his truck, I collected some additional sheets of ply and finished the second layer of flooring

While not scared of them, I don't particularly like all the garden insects that treat a shed as their pied-a-terre, and I hate getting a facefull of cobwebs, so, to try to make sure as many of the underfloor bugs as possible stay under-the-floor, I've ensured that the joints on the two layers of ply flooring don't line up between layers and then added a bead of silicone around the edge to seal the gaps. To kill off any insects that are already in residence, I'm intending to use a greenhouse fumer (smoke-bomb insecticide) this week and another in the spring before insulating and cladding the interior walls.

Remaining jobs before stopping until spring: Rendering of outside of block wall; Painting of liquid DPM on inside of block wall; Insecticide fumer

It was getting quite cold working in the shed on Saturday, so it feels nice to know that I'm near the end of the current phase (just in time for things to get really busy at work  )

I'll see if I can take a couple of pictures this evening if it's dry


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## verbarthe

Excellent work and coming together very nicely, lovely Alpina too, more pics of the car would be good as well


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## PerryGunn

And the pictures

Outside light









Blackpool illuminations have nothing on me...









Inside now with all flooring and bright lights - the camera's doing its best to get the exposure right under difficult conditions


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## PerryGunn

verbarthe said:


> Excellent work and coming together very nicely, lovely Alpina too, more pics of the car would be good as well


As you asked... :thumb:

Goodwood Soft-Top Sunday (05/05/2013)









Alpina Welsh Weekend (16/06/13)


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## verbarthe

Indeed I did , lovely car , absolute cracker, thanks for posting more pics :thumb:


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## Daz.

It's a tardis in there!


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## danga200

Got to agree, this is a top notch project and great use of dead space.


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## 20vKarlos

Is the interior getting insulated and boarded up?


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## PerryGunn

20vKarlos said:


> Is the interior getting insulated and boarded up?


Yes, it's going to be filled with rockwool and then boarded with 12mm ply but after I've got the block wall rendered and waterproofed, I'm going to stop until the spring - this will also give me an opportunity to work out the interior layout and locate decent shelving/racking etc.


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## jamesgti

Great work mate looks good.


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## graeme

PerryGunn said:


> This weekend was fun...
> 
> Saturday saw the installation of 3 x 5ft fluorescent lights, each takes two 58w tubes so it's very bright inside - from outside the windows glow like Chernobyl just before the meltdown.... this took a large chunk of the day as I'm a bit anal about avoiding any twists in the T&E, getting it all clipped down neatly along the rafters and labelling the cables at the junction boxes. I also added a PIR-switched external light so that I can avoid falling over the doorstep in the dark  and a temporary double mains socket taken from the garage - It'll get a full ring with plenty of sockets when the inside fit-out is finished in the spring
> 
> On Sunday I was supposed to be helping a mate to render the outside of the block wall to waterproof it - I'd be knocking-up, he'd do the skilled bit  - but monsoon conditions soon put paid to that idea so, with the aid of my step-son and his truck, I collected some additional sheets of ply and finished the second layer of flooring
> 
> While not scared of them, I don't particularly like all the garden insects that treat a shed as their pied-a-terre, and I hate getting a facefull of cobwebs, so, to try to make sure as many of the underfloor bugs as possible stay under-the-floor, I've ensured that the joints on the two layers of ply flooring don't line up between layers and then added a bead of silicone around the edge to seal the gaps. To kill off any insects that are already in residence, I'm intending to use a greenhouse fumer (smoke-bomb insecticide) this week and another in the spring before insulating and cladding the interior walls.
> 
> Remaining jobs before stopping until spring: Rendering of outside of block wall; Painting of liquid DPM on inside of block wall; Insecticide fumer
> 
> It was getting quite cold working in the shed on Saturday, so it feels nice to know that I'm near the end of the current phase (just in time for things to get really busy at work  )
> 
> I'll see if I can take a couple of pictures this evening if it's dry


That looks really good, a great use of space. I know what you mean about bugs. We had a she'd put up last year mainly for garden furniture and it's full of cobwebs. Might do some work this weekend on it as you had given me a few ideas with sealing it and bug bomb.

Keep up the good work.


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## Envy Car Care

Very impressive Perry. Thats my kinda shed!
Do you still have the 5 series? Hope you and the family are well.
Best wishes
Tim


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## Andrew Goacher

Looks like a job well done :thumb:....nice little car too


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## PerryGunn

Envy Valeting said:


> Very impressive Perry. Thats my kinda shed!
> Do you still have the 5 series? Hope you and the family are well.
> Best wishes
> Tim


Cheers Tim, the 5er had to go to make room for the Alpina, I couldn't justify having two garage queens - plus I'd have had to build a bigger garage <LOL>


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## N8KOW

Any updated pics of this? Looks good..


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## PerryGunn

N8KOW said:


> Any updated pics of this? Looks good..


I've stopped for the winter - the weather's not exactly ideal for working outside

I'm intending to start fitting out the inside in late March, but I'm picking up bits'n'pieces as I see them - I've just got a 4m x 720mm slab of oak which will become the top surface of the workbench


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## N8KOW

Look forward to checking back in a couple of months..


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## matt303

Interesting project, we are looking to move this year so projects like this help me think what I could do when looking at a house.

Thanks for sharing, looking forward to this progressing


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## sfstu

just found this thread, my god, what a well planned and beautifully carried out
build...:argie::thumb: a shed? i could live in there...! 

love your planning ahead and neat work and have picked up loads of ideas for my upcoming doublegarage kit out, cheers for taking the time to post and look forward to seeing the interior updates...

out of interest, what do you do for a living?

rgds stu


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## Obsessed Merc

Nice shed !
Bet you put underfloor heating in before next winter...


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## PerryGunn

sfstu said:


> just found this thread, my god, what a well planned and beautifully carried out
> build...:argie::thumb: a shed? i could live in there...!
> 
> love your planning ahead and neat work and have picked up loads of ideas for my upcoming doublegarage kit out, cheers for taking the time to post and look forward to seeing the interior updates...
> 
> out of interest, what do you do for a living?
> 
> rgds stu


My wife's been threatening to make me move in there so I'm on my best behaviour :lol:

I'm an IT Infrastructure guy, but I've always done a lot of DIY - it's so different to what I do for a living that I find it a good way to relax and unwind


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## TheGruffalo1

That's very nice indeed. Brilliant idea, looks awesome. 

All the best.


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## sfstu

PerryGunn said:


> My wife's been threatening to make me move in there so I'm on my best behaviour :lol:
> 
> I'm an IT Infrastructure guy, but I've always done a lot of DIY - it's so different to what I do for a living that I find it a good way to relax and unwind


i'm honestly impressed with your standard of work as a DIYer...:doublesho:thumb:
obviously i don't mean that as a backhanded compliment, i assumed you were a builder or kitchen or window fitter or something along those lines..:lol:

i'm getting back into DIY myself after several years off from it, as we moved house 9 months ago and although rusty, it's starting to come back to me and threads like yours are just what i need right now, inspirational...:thumb:

rgds stu


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## PerryGunn

Well, started work on Shedzilla again last weekend - still bloody cold out so just spent an hour or so each day putting a couple of coats of Danish oil on the floor to stop future spillages penetrating the wood

This weekend is Mother's Day so won't have time to do much, but should hopefully manage to get the cables run for the ring main. I've also ordered all the insulation, ply and timber for cladding the inside and making the workbench frame

It feels nice to get going again...


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## Jonny_R

great work mate and gorgeous car too


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## PerryGunn

As the weather has warmed up a bit, I've got back to fitting out the inside of Shedzilla.

Having run the cable for the ring main, it was time to insulate and board out the inside. I started with the far end and left an air gap to the block wall with air vents top and bottom to ensure that any moisture that found its way past the liquid DPM would be able to evaporate.









Then it was time to tackle the rest of the walls - life would have been much easier had I been able to stick to 600mm spacing for the studwork, but circumstances dictated otherwise - the ring main cables are visible clipped to the back of the studs to keep them away from screws etc. There will be 6 double sockets in the workbench area and a further 3 doubles in the angled section of the roof on the other side of the shed.









After a lot of insulation batt cutting the cavities were done and I was a bit itchy 


















Then it was down to cladding the lower walls with 12mm ply and putting in the supports for the workbench. 


















The next job was building the rest of the workbench framework including a tool shelf and cutting the oak - which was a little more awkward because the garage wall is at an angle. I didn't take many photos during this part but this is with the workbench mounted before the return section is trimmed. The workbench is 720mm x 40mm oak staves, to keep the long section in one piece I had to buy a 4m length and it weighs a ton - it was a 3 person job to manouvere the uncut length onto trestles for cutting


















During the cladding, I added cutouts for the sockets and supports behind so that they'd be relatively flush to the walls. I trimmed the end of the workbench return to match the angle of the main section of workbench, this keeps access through the pinch point as free as possible









Need to add a couple of coats of Danish Oil to the workbench to protect from spillages etc.









Everything's ready for wiring and connecting to the CU in the garage. 
Now I have to start measuring up and looking seriously at shelving/storage options to make the best use of the space...


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## Hasan1

That's looking fantastic


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## Guru

That is quite cozy.


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## Ducky

I work in IT and I couldn't imagine doing anything like that, bloody impressive handy work dude! :thumb:

I'm guessing you enjoy it a lot, from the amount of tool boxes on the shelf!


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## shudaman

Very smart!


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## PerryGunn

Ducky said:


> I work in IT and I couldn't imagine doing anything like that, bloody impressive handy work dude! :thumb:
> 
> I'm guessing you enjoy it a lot, from the amount of tool boxes on the shelf!


I'm in IT as well but DIY is so different from the day-to-day stresses at work that it's a good way to relax


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## trv8

That's turned out very nice Perry....well done :thumb:.


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## Rabidracoon28

That looks fantastic pal. I tip my cap to you 👍


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## yetizone

What a superb efficient use of the space - inspired! Really like the design and structure of the workbench - superb work!:thumb:


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## James Bagguley

Looks wonderful :thumb: Love these projects on here, a bit of DW OCD applied to tasks such as these.

You should be very proud of your efforts buddy, thats an amazing space you have created.


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## Palmer02

Pukka job


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## verbarthe

Really is a quality piece of work :thumb: . Know what you mean about Diy relaxing you as well.


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## glenboy

Great looking shed, would love one like that myself, top job.


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## PerryGunn

I've now managed to get a couple of coats of Danish Oil on the workbench - as well as sealing and protecting the wood, I just love the way it brings out the colour of oak


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## bigbadjay

Like this! Great work


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## Steve

Nice to see you have your priorities right with the beer :thumb:


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## PerryGunn

sjk said:


> Nice to see you have your priorities right with the beer :thumb:


Two cases of bud and one of Peroni should just about see me through tomorrow's warm weather...









I really should build in a mini-fridge... hidden so SWMBO won't realise what I'm up to...


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## Clyde

Great build. Really inspired me to get something done with the space at the end of my garden.


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## AustCy

What a cool space you made. Looks great


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## WAZ92

One of the best I've seen. Quality job.


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## PerryGunn

We had family down from Yorkshire this weekend so not a great deal of progress, but managed to get all sockets wired and trim in place around edges and windows



















Got to keep the car-related post quotient up- note the badged clock (in the correct colour, of course)... :car:


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## 20vKarlos

fantastic... this has certainly turned out to be a brilliant thread! what a great build!


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## Fluffuser

Wow. That's not a workbench, it's a piece of art.


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## PerryGunn

Been a little busy this weekend, but found time to start to sort out the storage end of Shedzilla.

I looked at commercial shelving and couldn't find anything that really did what I wanted and, because of the shape of the storage area,
it all resulted in a fair amount of wasted space. So I built a couple of high shelves using studwork timber and 610mm x 18mm MDF with enough
space underneath for the wheelbarrow, winter tyres etc.

Also hung a couple of workmates on the wall and my long stepladder across the garage window as that was dead space.










I also decided to move the Shedzilla laptop off the workbench on a sloping shelf so it's out of the way but can still be used.
For the DW pedants - that's an Amazon Basics MF cloth on the bench


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## SuperchargedLlama

Dude.

DUDE!

That's freakin' awesome - I love (seriously love) the work bench - the little details are really nice, like how you designed it to take certain things in certain places etc, very nicely done AND really inspirational!

The little laptop table is also a stonking idea, so simple but so bloody brilliant!


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## PerryGunn

As I've now got the plasterboard on the ceiling - something I find a horrible job and kept putting off - apart from painting the ceiling and purchasing more storage (tool cabinets, drawers etc.), Shedzilla is essentially complete and it's time for me to enjoy my Sanctum Sanctorum/Den/Sanctuary/Man Cave... 

Thanks to everyone for their comments :thumb:


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## TonyH38

Superb job, looks fantastic.


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## james_death

I love the lap top set up so can tinker and play in the garage but keep up on the forum...:lol: Sweeeet...


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## PerryGunn

james_death said:


> I love the lap top set up so can tinker and play in the garage but keep up on the forum...:lol: Sweeeet...


It ostensibly there so I can look up repair manuals, woodworking stuff etc. without walking through the house with dirty shoes/clothes - but it does have 'fringe' benefits... :thumb:


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## james_death

I suspected looking up info for jobs, your secrets safe with us...


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## joff-turbo-nova

Excellent job - good use of some dead space - I like the idea of the laptop .

This makes me think I really need to have a good sort out in my garage sometime SOON !

Joff


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