Favguy
Well-known member
Hello all, Nice to be here seeing all the fabulous garage builds you guys are on with. I'd now like to share my humble project with you all 
By the standard of many of the builds on here, this one is probably going to be quite small, as we generally have far smaller plots to work with here in the UK, but it is a larger garage by our norms!
OK, so lets get started with the story...
We moved home at the end of last year. One of the reasons for the move was so I could fulfill my desire for a decent size man cave for projects, so the house had to either already have, or have space to build, a decent sized garage. The problem in the UK is generally our plots are smaller and even when you start looking at bigger and bigger houses, (running up to eye watering values!) the size of any garaging with the house just doesn't get much bigger as the vast majority of people here just don't care about garages. They're usually just filled with junk, or often converted to another room in the house if attached. The cars just sit outside in the rain getting s**t on by bird life!
So after much hunting and rejecting many lovely houses due to lack of garage potential, (lots of estate agents seem to think you're insane when you reject a house based on the garage facilities, or lack of!) We found a nice house in a good location, within budget, and with a garage that could be developed to suit my needs.
The garage at the house had been hastily cobbled together as a conversion from an existing farm building when the house was built back in around 1988. The farm building itself dating from around 1900! Apart from not being a very good job to start with, having had just a single brick extension added to the front of the original farm building, it had been left alone with little maintenance for over 30 years. A combination of an old hawthorn hedge, two trees and an out of control russian vine, all immediately to the rear of the garage had taken their toll on the building.
Extensive unchecked ivy and other overgrown vines had resulted in a jungle type of environment to the rear of the garage, with extensive under tile infiltration of foliage.
Numerous birds, squirrels and other wildlife had used the space between the roof tiles and felt liner as home and it was completely filled with detritus, stores of nuts, snail shells by the hundred... well you get the picture
I really should have taken more pictures early on, but was keen to get on and neglected to do so.
Anyway, here's a picture of it as found:
Looked quite quaint, but the foliage was slowly destroying the building
And a closer shot:
At this point I was undecided how to proceed, so started by cutting down the two largest trees, clearing away excess foliage and cutting through all the bases of the ivy so it could start to die off. Then I gave the roof an initial clean up.
Looking a bit tidier, but still pretty shoddy:
OK, that's all for now, have to get some work done, I'll be back later
By the standard of many of the builds on here, this one is probably going to be quite small, as we generally have far smaller plots to work with here in the UK, but it is a larger garage by our norms!
OK, so lets get started with the story...
We moved home at the end of last year. One of the reasons for the move was so I could fulfill my desire for a decent size man cave for projects, so the house had to either already have, or have space to build, a decent sized garage. The problem in the UK is generally our plots are smaller and even when you start looking at bigger and bigger houses, (running up to eye watering values!) the size of any garaging with the house just doesn't get much bigger as the vast majority of people here just don't care about garages. They're usually just filled with junk, or often converted to another room in the house if attached. The cars just sit outside in the rain getting s**t on by bird life!
So after much hunting and rejecting many lovely houses due to lack of garage potential, (lots of estate agents seem to think you're insane when you reject a house based on the garage facilities, or lack of!) We found a nice house in a good location, within budget, and with a garage that could be developed to suit my needs.
The garage at the house had been hastily cobbled together as a conversion from an existing farm building when the house was built back in around 1988. The farm building itself dating from around 1900! Apart from not being a very good job to start with, having had just a single brick extension added to the front of the original farm building, it had been left alone with little maintenance for over 30 years. A combination of an old hawthorn hedge, two trees and an out of control russian vine, all immediately to the rear of the garage had taken their toll on the building.
Extensive unchecked ivy and other overgrown vines had resulted in a jungle type of environment to the rear of the garage, with extensive under tile infiltration of foliage.
Numerous birds, squirrels and other wildlife had used the space between the roof tiles and felt liner as home and it was completely filled with detritus, stores of nuts, snail shells by the hundred... well you get the picture
I really should have taken more pictures early on, but was keen to get on and neglected to do so. Anyway, here's a picture of it as found:
Looked quite quaint, but the foliage was slowly destroying the building
And a closer shot:
At this point I was undecided how to proceed, so started by cutting down the two largest trees, clearing away excess foliage and cutting through all the bases of the ivy so it could start to die off. Then I gave the roof an initial clean up.
Looking a bit tidier, but still pretty shoddy:
OK, that's all for now, have to get some work done, I'll be back later
Last edited:
