Repairing Rotten Timbers On A Porch

I completed some repair work to a porch for a customer the other day. The porch had gone rotten in the usual places and wood worm on on the fascia board also needed attention.

The corner post had rotted through on the bottom

The gutter had been leaking on the corner and had rotted out the end of the fascia board

Wood worm on this piece was quite bad and needed splicing

I cut the bad wood from the this piece and then sanded back all the fascia so I could treat it all for woodworm before making my reapairs.

The bottom of the door frames also needed splicing

A new piece spliced in 

All treated and primed ready for the next coat of paint

New corner post and cover strips

 Not a glamorous job but I was pleased with the results and so long as the porch has a proper coat of paint it should last for many years to come.

Fitted Oak Cabinets

Last night I completed fitting some oak cabinets. The customers were really pleased with the results and so was I! 

The finished job

The spaces to fill at the start

The left hand-side space, pieps run down the one wall making fixing tricky

They wanted a floating oak mantle piece like the one I fitted for myself last year

the mantle piece with template behind

Fitting the ply template to hold the bolts

Using resin to fix the bolts and make sure they're stuck out the right distance

Template and mantle on the front to make sure the bolts are aligned. 

Mantle piece fixed on

The only fixing holes, to be filled with an oak plug later

Building the cupboards

The top of the left hand cupboard with extra support where the TV is to stand

The pipe work at the back of the right hand cupboard to hide but leave accessible

An oak back fitted in

The cupboard ready for the door, this one is to store their firewood and the little shelf is to hold their stuff for lighting the fire

All ready for the doors

Simple panel doors fitted 

The smaller unit with a pair of doors

All complete ready for some oil

Oiled up

The finished job.

I was really pleased with how this job turned out. 

I've put in some late nights planeing, gluing up boards and making doors.  It can be tricky to fit in work around looking after the children full time but I think I manage to get a good balance and interesting jobs like this maek it really worth while.

The customers told me to put on my website that "It was worth every penny". Made me feel really pleased with the work I'd done.

New Wall In An Office

Not a very interesting post this one I'm afraid as I didn't take many photos but it follows on from the last post about the shop counter. When I'd finished building the counter we all decided that the second office was too big and the space would be better used as somewhere to display items for sale.

 So last week I went back and built a new wall out of 3x2 studding and clad it with MDF (so it was easy to fix things to) with insulation between, I then added a 2'9" door with a large glazed panel. 

Taking the old wall out was easy enough, although I was surprised as the metal studding used was welded together, something I'd never seen before, normally it's just held together with the plasterboard.

I gave it all a lick of paint when I finished and other than a last coat on the door the area is ready to be used. 

Shop Counter

This counter is one I built for my fathers firm back in the summer. I managed to get it painted a few weeks ago as they were moving into the office. It's being used now and it seems to work well. 

 The brief was a good solid top, shelves to store leaflets and an area to display them. I made the majority out of 18mm and 12mm ply. The top was doubled up for extra strength, and all edged so it could be painted to a good finish.

Tehmidle section. 3x2 stud sandwiched with 12mm ply. 

Starting to take shape. The Festool came into it's own on the project, allowing me to make straight cuts on the ply

Shelves all fitted in the main unit

A second unit to store manuals and other bits built to the side

Edging the top. I used 2x1 PSE for edging so it's nice and strong.

The unit finished ready for painting

Three coats of paint later it's all finished

A little side bar going off to one side as well.

A great project to build and I'll be interested to see if it works as well as we think it will.

Large Wardrobe With Sliding Doors

The last few weekends I've been finishing some wardrobes with a friend of mine.

 They are rather large, measuring 4.5m long with 4 sliding doors and a wardrobe rail that I can do pull ups on!

The sliding door gear we've been using is the best I've come across. I can smoothly slide a 4ftx8ft door with my little finger and they glide across the room. The doors are made from a sheet of MDF wrapped with aluminium channel, this gives the edge a nice finish and also means that the sliding gear can be fixed securely into the of the MDF.

I'll post some more pictures of these wardrobes when they're finished.

Chair Seat Frame Repair

A local upholster phone me up the other day to see if I was interested in repairing a chair for her. 

 The inside frame had some serious woodworm and had broken through in one place as well as all the joints coming loose or snapping.

 I made a complete new frame using beech and dowelled joints at the corners. I'd forgotten how much I hate dowels, doing them by hand is not as easy as you'd think and the fact that the frame is a trapezium made it awkward to line them up. 

Although only a little job you never know what might come from it in the future and as I was always taught growing up - "You never turn work down". Also it's good to work with (and for) other local tradesmen (and women) as you never know when you might require their skills and expertise.

Wendy House Build

For Christmas this year I built my girls a Wendy house for them to play in. It was a great present as they seem to love it, I built it in the evenings and weekends leading up to Christmas and erected it on Christmas eve. There's a surprising amount of work and wood in it. The cost of the wood alone was over £350 not including some stuff I already had.

Building frames in the workshop - I wanted ti to be modular so I could carry it all down the garden on my own.

Adding ship lap boarding to each side, this is where the main cost is as ship lap is quite expensive.

Side frames built - note how the ship lap boarding runs over the edges so that the joints will be more water proof, there is then a 2x1 trim that runs down the sides for the boards to butt into.

The front frame with a a window and door

Setting up the base. I went a bit over the top with the number of pads but I guess I'm going to have to go in there for tea parties so I want it to be strong and solid.

Painting all the panels, each side had two coats of Cuprinol shades. Although this is water based it does give a good finish.

Starting to assemble the house. Luckily we had good weather on Christmas Eve or this could have been a horrible job!

This si not a small Wendy house!

I sheeted up all the windows that the girls could see out of so as not to wreck the surprise!

Getting there. Ply added to the roof to be felted, handrail on the veranda all finished

Christmas morning, she was so excited to go in!

They both loved it!

Quite a fun project in the end and I'm sure they'll get many hours of happiness out of it (and hopefullly I'll get many hours in the garden because of it! 

I'm planning on adding a few extras for the eldest birthday as that's later this month.