Installing Guttering

A few weeks ago I fitted some white plastic guttering to a large set of out buildings we'd been working on. I was a little dubious as we'd normally fit black guttering to something like this but I think it really looks good and matches in with the house.

The white gutter looks good against the cladding

The front of the building

It took just over a day to get it all up. I tend to fit guttering level as it looks a lot better than having a heavy fall and so long as it's done right then it will run from the outlets as soon as the rain starts.

Cupboard Remodelling

This is a few days work from back in March remodelling a cupboard and creating a new one after a new fire place and flue had been fitted.

Boxing in the flue. I used fire board on the inside just "to be sure" even though the timbers were all outside the distances allowed to the flue

The other cupboard in the kitchen is above the fire place in the living room (if that makes sense...)

Simple MDF doors made on site to match what's already there

Boarded out, trim added and shelf fitted.

The finished cupboard

The othe cupboard finished. I also think that with this one I must hold some sort of record for the fastest hung door...

10m Green Oak Conservatory

A larger than normal conservatory I'm sure you'll agree! 10m long using planned green oak, the majority of the frame was built in the workshop by the joiner and then we've erected it on site and cut the roof on.

 Trusses to support the purlins in the roof

 The hexagonal part of the frame - tricky to install!

 All the roof beams are exposed so we had to be accurate with our cuts otherwise they'd always show up. The valley wasn't even on a 45 degree angle so all the usual books and workings were no good to us!

 Another tricky detail dealing with the termination of the purlin into the valley. No detail provided by the architect so we had to make it up on site, we were quite pleased with the result

 The hips on the hexagonal section of roof proved to be tricky due to the angles.

But they look really good from underneath.

A really interesting project and not of a type we get to do very often. 

Felt And Battening

Although it's not a job you can see when the roof is completed it's one I really enjoy.

 Putting the felt and battens on a roof makes it waterproof and changes the building completely.

Don't look too closely at our "scaffolding".

These two long runns didn't take us too long to complete but it's a big impact for the customer. 

Fitting Coving

Back in February I had to help two painters fit some coving in an old house.

 It was a tricky job as the ceilings wasn't very straight and the one side had a huge dip in the middle making it so we had to "bend" the coving to fit.

 Earlier in the week I had to go back and do a couple of other jobs in the house and I got to see the finished room (we also over boarded the ceiling so it could be re plastered).

 

It looks really good and the large coving goes well with the high ceilings.

Trussed Roof

On Thursday a gang of 5 of us put on this trussed roof.

 There's something strangely satisfying about putting on a trussed roof. It goes on so fast and looks so good when it's done.

We had the whole roof on and braced up in a day. All the trusses were lifted up by hand. I can see why big building sites opt for trussed roofs rather than ones that are cut on which take much longer and involve a lot more thinking.

3 Simple Green Oak Frames

I had the job of making three oak frames this week. They were quite simple, two were simple sides and a top and the other frame had a middle upright in it. The timber I used was large though and the one was 6.250m long and 250mmx250mm, some quite heavy stuff!

 As the timber was so heavy this meant that I couldn't test any of the mortise and tenons so I had to make sure I knew they'd fit before we lifted them into place.

My stack to timber to work with

Cutting the tenons

Mortising the largest timber. The mortises were through mortises so I had to bore down from both sides.

My slightly damp work area

Adding the pins to the bottom of the oak to make sure it located properly on the concrete slab.

The first, smallest frame in.

Second frame

The third and largest frame. We lifted this in with straps and the 360 digger.

Considering I couldn't test the joints I was happy with the results.

Good tight joints are what I like to see.

Once we'd lifted all the frames into place I was quite relieved at how well they'd fitted! There is nothing worse when there is a group of you fitting your work if it doesn't go together well!

These beams will get sanded up and oiled before we're finished

Cellar Trap Door

This is a job from a few weeks ago.

I had to build a substantial trap door for a cellar.

 The customer wanted it so that it could be left down for most of the time and the room used like a cupboard, but good access for the cellar when needed.

 I used some planed 6x2 timber for strength, adding a chamfer around all the edges so it gave it a traditional look. The hinges were brass, chopped in to be flush with the surface and a "bar" catch at the top to hold it open when you wanted  to go up and down the stairs.

A relatively simple project that with the addition of a few things, like chamfers and brass fittings, looked really good when it was finished.

Fitted Cupboards

Over the last two days I have been building two fitted cupboards either side of a fireplace for a customer.

The brief was that they were to look traditional, meet her budget and be build in a relatively short time so that her office wasn't out of action for too long.

We settled on building the carcases out of 18mm MDF to keep costs down and have the book shelves in 25mm ply for strength.

 The walls either side of the fireplace were massively out of level and square so it took a bit of time to level it all up. I then started to build the units i n place before adding the sides and the shelves above

First unit nearly built

All the beading to hide the edges of the MDF and ply

Simple MDF doors that will look really effective when painted up

Lots of space in each unit

The book shelves are 300mm deep to accept to rows of small books

The finished units - difficult to get far enough back to take a good picture I'm afraid!

It took me two very long days to fit these two cupboards but I'm really pleased with how they turned out in the end. I've asked the customer to send me a picture when they are painted and full of books so watch this space!