revtothelimit - motorbike forum

I don't know if this is interesting but I'm having fun (mostly) and it's diy...

The house we recently bought came with a garden office which looked kind of ok but on closer inspection was pretty rotten and the wiring was really sketchy so I decided to demolish it and replace it with a new home office from Dunster House. I built one of their home offices at the old house over ten years ago and it was excellent and superb value for money. I'll use the new building for working from home, playing guitar, playing computer games general hobby stuff.

Anyway, this is the building being demolished, not a great picture but the only one to hand...

This is part way through removing the cladding and the wiring. The goal is to remove the right most room, the middle covered area and retain the area covering the firewood. It feels like there's enough support in that third to standup by itself.

As an aside the back wall is timber framed with ply on the outside and cladding on the inside. The opportunity to insulate it wasn't taken and mostly weirdly/stupidly they built the double layer wall and only then decided to put lights up so the wiring was fed through both layers and along the wall on the outside of the building!



Here you can see the start of the removal of the tiles which was made more difficult by some of the roof being solid and able to hold my weight and some less so. You can also see a tree at 45 degrees and at the point it's unclear as to whether the shed is holding up the tree or the other way around.

Taking the roof off was a lot of work as it was tiled, there was roofing felt, osb board and then some kind of plasterboard or particle board on the inside...

So I get to this point and it's clear that although the tree can move somewhat independently of the shed wall, bring the wall down carried a significant risk of it falling down on me. I readied the chainsaw, tied some magic blue rope to the tree and then found I could just pull the tree over...


Then I could just cut up the tree with a chainsaw. While I was doing this I found that the tree killed a rat by falling on it... heads up buddy. This is where I currently am. I have two more weekends before the new building is delivered.

That's not DIY unless D stands for demolishing

Destruction first, then building.

This is what I'm building as a home office/workshop...


It'll be 4.5m wide by 2.5m deep. This shows where the split will be (red) and where the new building will be (yellow)...

Is the ex-existing shed already on a solid base or are you planning a new base?

(My cabin is built on a slope and the chaps built a base out of timber screwed to recycled plastic posts set in post mix. Means there's an insulating air gap and the slope was dealt with easy peasy. The plinth was clad with treated decking timber. Obvs you don't have a slope to deal with but it's easier than doing a concrete slab. They'd built them strong enough to house a workshop with a lathe and other heavy stuff in).

Count Steer wrote: Tue Mar 11, 2025 3:03 pm Means there's an insulating air gap

For the rats and foxes to nest in

MrLongbeard wrote: Tue Mar 11, 2025 3:07 pm

Count Steer wrote: Tue Mar 11, 2025 3:03 pm Means there's an insulating air gap

For the rats and foxes to nest in

Nah. A badger had an investigate soon after it was built but a few loose-laid slabs make tough digging.

Count Steer wrote: Tue Mar 11, 2025 3:03 pm Is the ex-existing shed already on a solid base or are you planning a new base?

(My cabin is built on a slope and the chaps built a base out of timber screwed to recycled plastic posts set in post mix. Means there's an insulating air gap and the slope was dealt with easy peasy. The plinth was clad with treated decking timber. Obvs you don't have a slope to deal with but it's easier than doing a concrete slab. They'd built them strong enough to house a workshop with a lathe and other heavy stuff in).

The middle section has a concrete base but I think that the old room is built on pressure treated wooden beams on dirt so all that will need to come out and i'll build a base level with the concrete that's there.

The first office I built at the previous house was on a slope and the company provided plastic grid sections that you filled with pea gravel and built the floor on metal pads that you could adjust the height of. Like this...

I really liked this system and it worked really well for a slight slope.

The new garden is level so I've ordered Dunster House's new system of grids that cover all of the base that you fill with pea gravel to spread the load. I need to work out a way to get this level with the concrete or just take out the concrete. Doesn't look too difficult though.

Kill/remove all that ivy, rats use it as motorways & shelter.

dern wrote: Tue Mar 11, 2025 3:33 pm

The new garden is level so I've ordered Dunster House's new system of grids that cover all of the base that you fill with pea gravel to spread the load. I need to work out a way to get this level with the concrete or just take out the concrete. Doesn't look too difficult though.

I've got that stuff on my drive at home. It means I can have a crunchy crunchy gravel driveway that I can park on, but it all stays put and the ground doesn't end up with two tyre tracks where you always drive. You can't even see the grid unless you know it's there and look for it specifically.

Bonus picture of the willow tree from the first picture being dismantled. A few weeks ago I cut all the bases of the ivy on all the of the tree and the willow looked pretty sketchy. We had it inspected and decided that it needed to come down. The top was healthy but the base was rotten... borderline safe to climb rotten. It had been pollarded some years ago and then just left to its own devices by the previous owner. Still, should get plenty of firewood out of it.

Stick some cuttings of the healthy bit in pots, then go plant the resulting trees in various places.

Weeping willow. That and Silver birch is my favourite trees.

Felix wrote: Fri Mar 14, 2025 12:43 am Weeping willow. That and Silver birch is my favourite trees.

It was a nice feature of the garden and we're sorry to see it go. Better than having it embedded in the side of the house though I guess.

Jeeze, does that area ever dry out? Do you own a pressure washer?

dern wrote: Fri Mar 14, 2025 1:41 pm

Felix wrote: Fri Mar 14, 2025 12:43 am Weeping willow. That and Silver birch is my favourite trees.

It was a nice feature of the garden and we're sorry to see it go. Better than having it embedded in the side of the house though I guess.

Oh yes. We get folk here bitching about trees getting felled but never think to ask why. Last one was rotten in a church and a huge branch fell almost killing a classic dry stone wall on a main route through town. It was rotten from the inside out so down it came. The bloody outcry in the local rag was embarrassing.

More progress…

Will start to take the back wall out tomorrow and as much of the floor as I can.

Are you planning to lay a slab as a base to build on? Anything on stilts or raised is just asking for vermin to make a home underneath.

mangocrazy wrote: Mon Mar 17, 2025 1:11 pm Are you planning to lay a slab as a base to build on? Anything on stilts or raised is just asking for vermin to make a home underneath.

It's covered earlier in the thread, but yes, a base with no voids.

Progress at the end of the weekend...