Recent content by GrantT

A slight house and garden interlude. A warm summer had resulted in the existing patio exposing its poor pointing, weeds sprouted up between every crack and one trip away for a couple of weeks resulted in 3ft high weeds across the whole area. So we found a local guy who came recommended and...

I worked from home at the time and spend a lot of time on calls, it was unbearable at times!

Holy thread resurrection Batman! What a year, a severe lack of free time. Anyway, where was I... We treated all the timber to match so everything was one colour, it was coming together And then I trimmed round the doors. I went back and forward on how to do this and settled on 18mm / 3/4"...

Apologies for anyone that's been hanging on for further tales of woe, it's all been a bit crazy work-wise here. Where were we, garage basically built, floods, some storage up and buying more toys I don't need... Next job, making it look more in keeping with the rest of the property and the...

Now we had power (a "temporary hook up" that was to last 5 years...) we could start to actually move things in properly and get the space. back in the house that we were using as a garage. We'd been really lucky with the weather up until this point, when it rained particularly heavily. You might...

Yes, in hindsight I would have 100% been better off with a big single door the width of the two singles, would have made getting stuff in and out a lot easier and made the space a lot more flexible

On with the garage, from here on in we were on our own! Just to reiterate, we are enthusiastic amateurs so if you see stuff done wrong then that'll be the reason! I had a pair of compact header electric roller doors made by a very affordable UK company I found via ebay. It's just come back to...

A little more about the house for those that may be interested. The village used to be coal mining housing for the open cast mine which is now a country park. When the UK coal industry collapsed all the housing and land was sold in to private hands, in this case into a large property trust...

We had never had anything built for us before, we'd been homeowners for over a decade but we're enthusiastic DIYers out of necessity, we simply couldn't afford to pay to outsource everything (and still can't) but we do know out limits and bricklaying is one of them! I was surprised at how...

In the mean time we had to store all the stuff that we had in our previous garage, luckily the house has a 6m x 6m (19 1/2 x 19 1/2 ft) random room tagged onto the side, the previous owners had it set up as a games/hangout room for their teenage sons. Bearing in mind that we had all of this...

If people are interested I'll drop in stuff about the house as well as the garage, it's certainly fairly unique in the UK. I've got 6 years of stories to tell! Finally on to the garage, this is the space: We're limited by permitted development to 30sqm (323sqft) so could only build something...

After stretching ourselves to buy our dream house we were a little tight on cash, but we did have money put aside for a garage, that's when the problems started... October 2018, been in a month, the season changes and it's getting chilly but we couldn't get the master bedroom radiators warm...

In 2018 we bought our 'forever' home in beautiful coastal Northumberland, a mile from the sea with only a nature reserve between us and the coast. Unusually for the UK it's a Finnish log home, manufactured as a kit in Finland and delivered on the back of a lorry for self build. We'd struggled...

We didn't get these in Europe but they certainly turned my head last time I was in the States. I'd be tempted away from my Euro-wagon by one I think, but only for the unique US-ness of it. Maybe that's the exact opposite of Gregor's situation, a wagon would be unique in it's Euro-ness

Get the wagon, you'll not regret it. 'Sports' wagons are the perfect vehicle for me, although I may be a little biased... Previous 333bhp S4 Quattro Avant (My dream car but 22 UK mpg and £2 per litre made it unviable) Current 260bhp 330d xDrive Touring (40 UK mpg around town, 50+ on a decent...