# My ongoing garage rebuild/refurb project



## DON 41D (Jan 21, 2008)

This was the biggest DIY project I had ever attempted, but I am hoping next year to start an even bigger project, a timber frame 6m x 5m garage, so this was a practice run if you like. I started this project just over a year ago. This garage was first built in the 1950's using typical construction methods from that period - poured concrete was apparently the order of the day! There were no buildings standards or planning permissions required locally back then.

This rebuild/refurb project has been done on a tight budget; it was never going to be big enough to do any indoor detailing anyway, but rather to gain some additional storage space, and to actually have somewhere where I could get a car stored inside if the need ever arose.

There was a serious height issue inside the garage, you couldn't stand up straight on one side, so the decision was taken that the walls would have to be built up to get some decent height inside. The original garage door and half the roof blew in in a severe gale a number of years ago, so what was left of the garage had been lying unused and open to the elements for quite a while.

This is the only photo I can find of the garage before I started work on it










First job was to strip what was left of the roof off, and clear out the inside














































I started building up the walls, built block on flat construction

















































































































































Next up was extending the garage out enough so that I could actually fit a family sized car in there. The garage was barely 4.5m long before, I extended it to 4.9m. I acquired the garage door FOC, and I build the opening around the door size, which is 7'6" x 7'. The steel beam I also acquired FOC, and luckily was just the right length. The pillars were tied into the rest of the structure at regular points as I built them up.





































I then tied all the new block work together with wall ties, and built up on the steel beam to the height of the roof timbers




































































































The roof timbers I used were 6" x 2" treated timbers, shaped at the ends to sit on the block wall at either side. I spaced them in such a way that I would have less cutting to do on the OSB boards, so some are 550 apart, some are 700 apart














































I then decided that I would remove the side window, and install a side entrance door instead. I didn't expect the walls to be so tough, took me a whole day to break through from the window sill level down to the foundation level





































The next job was installing the main up and over door, and fitting the roof sheets. The roof sheets were also acquired FOC from a demolition which recently took place in my local town. I decided to install 1 roof light sheet, and positioned this towards the rear of the garage.









































































Next job was to make the side door and door frame; I used 4 x 2 treated timber and 12mm plywood. I painted the door and frame with 2 coats of mahogany wood stain / preservative. (Didn't take any photos of the door)

Next major stage was to rip out the old floor, which was too high at the back of the garage, and was sloping down to the road level outside. The floor was basically a thin skim of concrete spread onto stones. I ripped the lot out, and dug the inside of the garage down at the rear to just above the outside drain level. I then put some of the stones back in, and built up the floor towards the front, to give less of a slope. It was going to be impossible to get a level floor inside the garage, but I managed to get it to a point where if you didn't know it wasn't level, you wouldn't notice!
































































I took a break from the hard labour for a few weeks, and set about sorting out some storage. I put up some shelves on one side, and recycled some under bed storage drawers as 2 cupboards on the back wall. I also hung up my roof bars and roof bars above the garage door. I also fitted the guttering to the outside.









































































Right, back to the hard graft. I started putting some of the stone back into the floor and trying to level the floor out. I used some recycled glass chips to fill in the gaps between the stones, and then finished off with a layer of fine class sand/dust.
































































Then the DPM was installed, and the concrete was layed in 2 halves. I used some of the glass chips in the concrete as an experiment, and it worked out quite well.























































And the first car in was my brother's corsa. Plenty room to work on it inside if it is tight up against one side of the garage























































And that's pretty much where I am at with this project at the moment. The next stage is to get it wired up. I have bought all the necessary supplies, cable, consumer unit and the lighting, but I am not going to attempt the installation myself, think I will leave it to someone who knows what they are doing. I am also hoping to have the external walls rendered when the weather improves.


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## jcp (Oct 2, 2010)

Well done so far , thats a big improvement :thumb:


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## BMW Shortie (May 27, 2008)

big improvement


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## Alzak (Aug 31, 2010)

nice one :thumb: is nice to have some place to work on car in bad weather


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## 47p2 (Jun 17, 2007)

Nice work in progress.

My only thought is that I would have used longer ties to hold the roof timbers on, especially with the weather we had yesterday


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## DON 41D (Jan 21, 2008)

47p2 said:


> Nice work in progress.
> 
> My only thought is that I would have used longer ties to hold the roof timbers on, especially with the weather we had yesterday


Thanks mate. I did use a rake of 120mm frame fixings through the cross pieces into the block work between each roof timber, so i don't think the roof is going anywhere.

The garage door on the other hand is probably going to have to be replaced with something stronger, either a shutter door or a sectional door, as it is not ideal for areas where high winds are quite common. I have a couple of lengths of 4 x 2 proped up against it inside when it's really windy, just incase it decides to open by itself!


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## 47p2 (Jun 17, 2007)

I just thought it might be stronger using ties long enough to go down the wall onto the existing stone work, that way nothing would move the roof.

I used ties about 3 feet long when I did my roof as can be seen in the picture below.

I can't remember the technical name for them but there are two different types. The short ones hold the top wall plate to the wall and the long ones are attached to the bottom of the rafters


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## DMH-01 (Mar 29, 2011)

Looking good mate :thumb:


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## Derekh929 (Aug 28, 2011)

Well done good result you had better put plenty of wall ties onto to the roof up in Lewis, great veiw


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## GJM (Jul 19, 2009)

DON 41D said:


> The original garage door and half the roof blew in in a severe gale a number of years ago


How did it hold up against the recent weather..

Few cars here not requiring MOT's now


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## chris- (Mar 27, 2011)

GJM said:


>


owch!! Where did you find that piccy? Is there more info for the nosey folk


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## ashk (Aug 11, 2008)

Original 106 is a local radio station up here in aberdeen


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## ashk (Aug 11, 2008)

not sure where abouts that is though...


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