High spec garden building on a budget
Discussion
Yes it is air-conditioned. You can see it on the wall to left on the finished picture. There's also a small panel heater which I leave on the lowest setting over the winter months to keep it aired. The air-con is wi-fi connected so you can (in theory) turn it on and off remotely but my wife often forgets and leaves it running. She does however turn off the power to the router so I can't check without walking down the garden!
)classicaholic said:
Great build and very good ebaying!
I hope you use it more than my gym though, its just a store now thats cluttered with expensive gym equipment!
It gets used pretty much every day and has done since it was built. I hope you use it more than my gym though, its just a store now thats cluttered with expensive gym equipment!
I have a confession though that I actually built this two years ago and I actually finished the workshop a few weeks ago. I've been meaning to do a build thread for ages but never got round to it. The sad news is after all this work we've sold the house and I've done it all for someone else, especially the workshop that I've been waiting for since 2002 when I got divorced and moved here without one. The new owners are planning on using the gym as a posh dog kennel
There isn't a gym at the new house so my wife has already bagged the garage, leaving me without a workshop space again. New build thread coming soon.
Edited by 4Q on Tuesday 23 July 08:13
Fantastic stuff OP, wish I had the skills for this.
Mrs PB and I work together and something like this would be ideal as an office. Alas, we've balked at the cost of getting someone in as you did.
In the event we've downsized to another office in town but we'll spend a little more in rent over the next year than what you've spent building this whole thing. Gah!
Mrs PB and I work together and something like this would be ideal as an office. Alas, we've balked at the cost of getting someone in as you did.
In the event we've downsized to another office in town but we'll spend a little more in rent over the next year than what you've spent building this whole thing. Gah!
4Q said:
Having just done a quick tally and I think It cost me around £4k to build all in excluding the gym equipment
However as I alluded too earlier I had too much of everything so the gym itself was probably nearer £3k.
In fact I had enough left over to build A 5.5m x 3.6m workshop
Fair enough, even at £4k (your going to have left over is buying left over stock on eBay), that's a fair size room for the cost. Fair play to you.However as I alluded too earlier I had too much of everything so the gym itself was probably nearer £3k.
In fact I had enough left over to build A 5.5m x 3.6m workshop
I might have put a 45-deg wall in where you had the step, and used it as a workshop, but otherwise I could see myself doing a very similar build.
Sad face that your leaving the room behind after all that work and sourcing materials, although on the flipside I guess at least it was £4k not £24k.
Thanks for the thread.
Daniel
dhutch said:
Fair enough, even at £4k (your going to have left over is buying left over stock on eBay).
Thanks for the thread.
Daniel
The £4k actually built me three buildings - the gym, a workshop/garage of similar size and a shed off the back of the garage that you can see unclad in this picture. Thanks for the thread.
Daniel
Edited by 4Q on Monday 1st July 15:33
Yes, make sure my wife had no plans to move!!
I wouldn't have so much glass next time, I liked the idea but you end up with the blinds closed much of the time so it sort of defeats the object of having them. Although £311 for one of the walls is pretty cheap.
I wouldn't have so much glass next time, I liked the idea but you end up with the blinds closed much of the time so it sort of defeats the object of having them. Although £311 for one of the walls is pretty cheap.
Edited by 4Q on Monday 1st July 16:07
TooLateForAName said:
Can you explain how these work and how you set them up?
I dug down 700mm with a post hole digger* at the locations where I wanted to support the frame at each corner and roughly 1.2m apart. Set the frame level and clamped some lengths of unistrut against it to keep them square to the frame and then filled the holes with postcrete.Once it had set I checked the frame again for level and true and bolted the Unistrut to the frame with 12mm coachbolts. I got slotted unistrut as it was easier than drilling it to fix. It also meant that if I got any settlement I could adjust level again although there wasn’t any. I could probably have gotten away with just hammering in the strut but it wouldn’t have been as accurate as they’d likely run slightly off true.
- the manual kind like two small shovels with a hinge
Edited by 4Q on Monday 1st July 20:40
nitrodave said:
Wonderful and inspiring! Good job mate. I've been wanting to build a workshop in the garden, but struggling for time lately. It's the next big job I want to get started on at home.
Thanks, I'd recomend SIPS as a building method. I got the structure up from a standing start in a weekend. You can buy them new for £35--£50 each and they slot together really quickly. If you keep to multiples of standard panel sizes for your dimensions you won't have to do too many cuts. Once built and wrapped in membrane it's waterproof and you can clad in whatever you like at your leisure. I went with Cedral cladding rather than wood as being less than 5m from a boundary it had be non-combustible although wood would have been quicker and cheaper. AlmostUseful said:
Brilliant projects, unbelievable finish for a <£5k build cost!
Although I tried to keep the budget sensible nothing was done "on the cheap", all the timbers used were treated, screws were stainless, plastered properly instead of taped and jointed, EDPM roof rather than felt, decent quality sockets and loads of them, etc, etc. I could have built for less if I tried but I wanted it to be future proof and outlast me as we were planning on staying here forever. 
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