Studio build - Part 2
With home working becoming the norm over the pandemic, this blog post series explores the highs and lows I went through when designing and building my own garden studio.
With materials on site the build could begin. I started the week before, clearing the area of weeds, soil and breaking up concrete which wasn’t needed. By the time the area was clear it was time to lay the foundations. My first thought for foundations was to completely level the area and do a concrete foundation, as I wanted it to be as solid and as secure as possible. With time (and budget) against me, my dad suggested a new option – stilts. I actually thought he was joking but when I looked them up I saw they were a really great time saving option which was just as solid as laying a concrete base.
Foundations
With the stilts saving us an entire weekend of waiting for a concrete foundation to dry we got stuck into building the wooden foundation which would make up the floor area of the entire build. On day one we cut the 4 pieces of timber which made the box section of the base by hand. I caught myself thinking that I’m not doing the entire build this way so the next day I went out and bought a Mikita chop saw. Suddenly I was flying through cuts so the rest of the flooring went down pretty quickly after that.
Next up was to lay the sterling boards and attach them to the base. From here we started building up and the structure really started to take shape. By the end of the second week I was thinking, ‘man it’s big isn’t it. Is it too big?’. Double guessing my measurements every step of the way my dad and wife assured me I’d get used to the size and it’ll soon start to feel normal. Luckily, it has. I guess it was the initial shock of seeing it. I made sure to check and double check government guidelines to make sure I didn’t need to secure planning permission. My studio I’m happy to report is definitely under the 4 metres permitted!
Raising the roof
With the floor and stud work built, we moved on to the veranda and roof. All of the materials used throughout this stage was plain timber. Starting to lay the sterling boards on the roof was a big stage for me. Seeing the inside of the build enclosed showed me how the final build would feel, which felt incredibly exciting.
Unfortunately though, this also coincided with weeks of heavy rainfall, which hampered construction and really affected the exposed sterling board, both on the roof and the floor of the studio and shed. When wet, the wood tends to take on water in the same way as a Weetabix so whenever I was in bed at night and heard rain outside I felt a pang of anxiety rush through me. Luckily none of the boards needed replacing and soon after the rain stopped I ordered some rubber roofing material to fix in place so I could start to sleep properly again. All offcuts of this material I laid on the flooring inside in an attempt to save the floor from any more downpours!
Supply issues
The set backs didn’t end there though. Due to earlier lockdowns and general disruption from the pandemic, getting materials to continue the build began to feel impossible. I couldn’t source cladding or wood of any kind, so for a month or so building work stopped.
I used this downtime to source things online that I’d need further down the line. I picked up a front door from Facebook for £20 and a load of used insulation from a building site for £60. It wasn’t until the end of September, when supplies started becoming available again and we were able to restart the build. But by this time, the chill of autumn had already taken hold.
Next time: Difficulties
