Well, after the demise of my old 3dr, or 'project tri-door' as i called it was was wrote off 10 minutes after being fully road legal and 95% finished - i (read the wife) had had enough of me fucking about with cars and spending loads of money on them...


So, with 2 kids and a 3 bed semi we have found there is not enough room...

the missus wanted a conservatory, but im not one to fuck about so said bollocks to that and planned an extension... one thing led to another and its now a bloody big extension lol...

im only hoping that this wont take 5.5 years to finish lol.

so some pics:

the house as it was







existing plans



proposed plans



the demolition of the garage and utility room commenced the other week





lifted all the block paving



im not sad but while doing it i counted 1260 blocks, and a fuck load of dry stone wall



got the roof off last weekend





and then yesterday the rest was down!

local farmer had all the bricks, saved me a good £500 on skips etc





and the finished result is a big driveway lol





so thats where we are now. the guys excavating the foundations should be in within the next week hopefully, so then its fill with concrete and get the brickies in!

the missus is regretting it already lol. i did say ill just rebuild the garage then and buy an ultima GTR to put in it with the cash.... she then said to carry on with the extension

 

Bloody hell Dan u had a full garage the other month

Keep it up fella

Paul

 

i dont hang about mate lol

 

Thats some good going lol.Bloody farmers are like gypos...they will have owt.

 

Look forward to watching this develope mate.

 

cheers lads, its something a bit different and some time away from cars lol

aim is to get a westfield or something similar in a few years time. but family first at the mo.

we did look into getting a company in to all of it for us, but the costs were about double than what we have available, so it seems i massivly underestimated the costs involved lol.

so we are now going the route of getting the individual trades in to do their bit and i will do as much as poss to save on money and to most importantly - to learn new things!

i was looking into digging the foundations, myself but its getting rid of the muck thats the problem, my uncle is a retired builder and knows a lot of people in the trade and dad is quite handy too.

got a guy doing the digging and getting rid of it all for cash in hand, the brickies will be cash and ill buy all the materials with trade cards etc, then it just the roofer that will only go through the books.

should have the shell built for 20k we hope!! then it'll be another fuck load sorting the rest out... oh well, its all part of the fun!

 

I know a good plasterer his rates are very good too

 

might deffo be interested in due course paul!!

righto, slight update.... the guy that cam over to give us a quote to dig the foundations and get rid of all the shit.... has let us down! he has decided that he cant be fucked to do it and he is going on hiliday on friday for 2 weeks! FFS fucking cheers!

i hate people like that, wont say no but sting you along till the last minute then fuck you off...

but never mind, dad has been on the case and managed to talk him into using his account and they have booked a 3.3ton excavator and mini dump truck - being delivered wednesday! oh bollocks

still, at least ill get to have a go on one now as i want to level off the garden a bit and fill the pond in, so ill have a little practice on the thing lol

turns out my uncle isnt a builder, he just done that on the side, his real skills are int he groundworks! i wish he bloddy told me earlier! so he will be the pilot for the excavations, and ill just have a piss about and destroy the garden lol.

roll on weds.... lol

 

love oddball threads like these

 

Been there done that even stuck the mini digger in the hole i was digging took me a while to get it out and it was dark with only a flood light

So Be Carefull

 

what, you mean smashing half your own house down, then thinking 'oh fuck' LOL

 

pmsl paul, thats exactly the sort of thing i would do

 

Something A bit Diffrent "A"

What You Going to stick in the garage when its finished

 

probably just my bicycle for a good while... i cant see much change from 50k for the completed extension.

but eventually there will be a westfield of some sort residing in there lol

 

Sound like a good plan cycle the bike save the money get the westie and transplant the cossie engine in it LOL

GOOD PLAN

 

just getting over a broken ankle thanks to the last time i was out on the bike

and ill be going the route of audi turbo in it not YB!!

well, the excavator and dumper turned up at 8:45 this morning, and there is already a pile of shit on the front lawn lol. ill be finishing work at 4 so will nip home and get some pics lol then have a go myself

 

mate thats a nice house

 

cheers cam, looks a bit different again today

time to send in the big guns!!



big hole lol





didnt get a pic of the massive pile of shit that was in the hole, that is now on the front lawn lol

still, onwards!!

 

[quote=Fudgey;5930665]just getting over a broken ankle thanks to the last time i was out on the bike

and ill be going the route of audi turbo in it not YB!!


As long as it a turbo it be bags of fun

 

well, after last weeks lovely weather, we finished digging the footings on saturday, but not without a few setbacks...

where the utility room was that square bit of concrete was over a foot thick int he middle, and over 1m thick around the edges... so suffice to say the ol digger wouldnt touch it, the old man had hired one of those jack hammer things that barely touched it. i spent a good 4 hours or so attacking it, to no avail. so the next day dad hired the same kind of thing that attached to the digger and it took them a day just to get that little bit up, so set things back about a day and a half all in...

then on sat les answered the question of 'where is the mains power cable then' when he pulled half of it up with the scoop... big flash and a phone call to the SEB later the power was back on... but they now want me to move the meter and have the cable above ground etc because your not allowed to concrete over the cables or joins... ill think of a way round it i reckon! (well i already have..)

so, that was that, the excavations were finished close of play on sat. job done

almost, due to the bank holiday i couldnt get the inspector out till weds morning and of course between sat night and then its pretty much cunted it down with rain and parts of the trench had collapsed in... so i got in and removed all i could, then managed to make a small gulley with the spade all the way round to the driveway, where luckily there was a soakaway drain. so i got it from ankle deep sunday morning to a few puddles.

we had to clear all the wet shit out weds morning before the inspector came round and then he wanted us to go another 150mm deeper for a couple of meters nearest the driveway. luckily the hire place couldnt get the digger back till today so we quickly done that, then ordered 9 cubic meteres of concrete. the first truck turned up an hour late, and it was 3.30pm yesterday that we started to barrow the shit about...

buy 5.30pm both trucks had been, and my soggy empty hole was now brimmed with nice concrete...

then it pissed down again and pretty much hast stopped

so today ive been off and ordered a few £K of materials for delivery tomoz/monday...

so just need to arrange to get the inspector back out for monday, and its time to crack on

pics a bit rubbish as its still pissing down and i cant be bothered to get wet again...

 

looks good fudgey, just getting going now

 

I'm having no involvement in finishing this project...

Doesn't matter how much JD you offer me

 

Nice work fella

I'll be putting my house on the market soon and hopefully stepping up a level.

Fingers crossed hey

 

cheers bud, hopefully wont be long till we have some scalpings down and then there will be a lot less mess from the damn clay!

lol cheers will. i dont think the bricks need mapping, so you should be ok lol

do it mate, if we didnt like the area so much we would have looked at moving. but saying that we wont find anything as big round here for the same sort of money, so massive extension is the cheaper option lol

 

Nice one Dan!

 

nice one

 

cheers lads, chris - what have you been upto mate?? not heard from for a very long time! i hope all is well with you?

not much progress to report on as yet. inspector came out monday and gave the go ahead to start building.
next thing to look at is the drainage which im researching at the mo as i dont have a clue lol

taken delivery of some materials like half the bricka nd concrete blocks, so sat i was loading out 216 concrete blocks, and was fucked after, but the sand didnt turn up! only just been delivered a little while ago so hopefully the builder can start on thursday if the weather holds out!!

 

I am doing well mate, fell off the car scene for a little while. Bought a house n got married lol.

Had a couple of focus ST's but now im in a diesel BMW.

Hope you n the family are well. best of luck with the build!

 

awesome, well done bud. kids on the way yet lol?

well, the brick laying started tonight!

got a bit done in 2 hours, but i need to sort drainage and gav is on a stag do this weekend so will resume monday, providing i have sorted the drainage...

anyone know anything about drains?

 

Looking good Dan you have been busy. no get round here and dig my footings to make my garage bigger LOL

 

i didnt do much digger driving tbh mate, i only moved the shite piled up on the front lawn about so the grab lorry could get it.

but ill have a go if you hire the kit

 

another update. last week seen all of the block work built up to DPC ready for the flooring. but its rained since!

i had to rebuild the manhole ready for the scaplings to come in so i have done that tonight...

so que the PF builders to tell me what a shit job it is

tbh im pretty chuffed, i have never laid a brick in my life and only ever done one load of cement so for tonights effort im quite pleased with the outcome. lets face it, its better than i was expecting lol

ok its far from perfect and i only used a spirit level and found that the original brickwork was not square after laying 2 courses, so thats why the bottom half is a bit off.

but it will do, the only action its going to see is my massive turds anyway

so, some pics







and the best bit lol



dont worry, i wont give up my day job

 

looks ace mate good on you.

 

Well done Dan. Right then when u coming over to do my garage

 

Looks fine pal , just a bit of advice tho manholes should be 9inch pal

 

cheers lads.

sorry mate, you have lost me

all i have done is rebuilt what was already there as its had crumbled, and gone one brick course higher as the garage floor level wil be slightly higher than before

 

when this is done and dusted mate, and you pay me lots and lots of money to do it

 

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Seeing this is giving me inspiration to attempt my own garage rebuild

 

What I mean mate is as its on a driveway where cars are going to be driveing over it single skin brickwork (4") isn't really substantial and really need to be double skinned (9") to prevent it collapsing in on it's self, but that's what building regs want , as long as ure not driving a tank over it should be fine mate ,hooo roooo lucy

 

ah i see, its in the garage mate, but the rest of the garage just isnt there yet lol