My UK barn renovation.

[EddyP]

Hi Guys

Been a lurker for a long time but thought it about time I shared with you a UK build.
We bought the place back in June 2015, unfortunately the house had to take the priority, so my nice organised workshop from our old place ended up like this:

And that was only half of it!

This is what the barn looked like when we were looking around prior to purchase, at the time there was a wall blocking off the driveway so the entrance was by driving through the barn!

This was us on moving day, everything had to be carried through to the house as the trucks wouldn't fit through the barn.

One of the first jobs to do was to get the wall across the driveway taken down and turned into a proper entrance so that I could then close the barn up.
Once this was done a new pair of doors needed to be made for one side of the barn as they were missing, they're big doors too!
Unfortunately the property is what's known in the UK as being listed, this is where it's protected by English Heritage because the property has historical interests, as a result of this every little thing needs planning permission, even if we wanted to change the guttering or fix the roof, we need permission, it's a real pain, but we don't mind. I did meet the local conservation officer before we bought the place and told them of my intentions for the barn and had an OK, if they hadn't been on board we wouldn't have bought it.

Once our planning permission came through we could get started on the drive way wall.

Picked up some beefy Oak gate posts:

And just popped them in, 1 metre deep.

Then the walls could be built:

Finished:

Now time for the proper work to begin:

And then I could finally park a car inside!

Not for long though as quite a lot of work is about to start.....

 

[morshane]

Welcome !
Very Nice work !

 

[Dave_Car_Guy]

That is a beautiful property, clear why it is listed! I love the start to the barn-garage, particularly the design on the "new-old" barn doors. It is going to look fantastic (and clearly you will have it well organized by the look of the storage items you brought from the old place). I'll be interested how you get it lit up since you have solid rock/brick walls to contend with for wiring. Cheers, thanks for sharing this!

 

[Cris B]

Nice old place with lots of potential. Nice TVR too. The stonework looks like Stamford stone, you based some where in Lincolnshire?

 

[Richard Cranium]

looks like a lot of sag on the roof where you first posted pictures of where your cars were parked.

 

[theundermount]

Wow very nice place, I hope you have good luck working with the heritage comitee throughout your renovations can't wait to see more

 

[EddyP]

Nice old place with lots of potential. Nice TVR too. The stonework looks like Stamford stone, you based some where in Lincolnshire?

Thanks, It's in Northamptonshire, it's Iron stone.

looks like a lot of sag on the roof where you first posted pictures of where your cars were parked.

Yeah, they're old pig sheds, now dumping areas for stuff that doesn't yet have a home, but will be car ports at some point. I'll be straightening the roof line back out though, the centre post has sunk and snapped some of the timbers, needs jacking back up and sorting, but the barn is more important

Before the floor was done I had to knock down that brick wall in the photos above, some of this was easy but some bits were tough, I wanted every bring cleaned so it took me a couple of weekends with a chisel, luckily it's almost all lime mortar, the bricks are 18th century hand made bricks so we've kept them to be reused else where with the house or garden.

So once the floor was done, it was time to get the pressure washer out and clean years worth of muck off the walls, roof and beams.

Then it's time to start painting......

 

[4xdog]

Subscribed! Looks like a terrific place.

 

[sublime68charger]

Nice place!

Welcome and keep posting up the pictures!

 

[theoldwizard1]

Very cool ! I always like to see build project outside the US just to compare and contrast materials and methods.

Please keep posting. The picture are fascinating.

 

[klusenhusen]

What a nice place, seems like a lot of work before you end up where you want to be.
This is exactly the kind of project I like to follow, a bit more complicated because of the property being listed.
I’m looking forward to seeing your progress.

 

[EddyP]

Once the original pair of doors were closed up I wanted to add some more security so they were boarded up, they won't ever be used for driving in/out. It also adds a bit of insulation and weather proofing.
The little hatches in the boarding are so that I can get to the latches on the gates to open them incase I need to do any repairs to them in the future, they're pretty old and the timber has seen much better days.

Now to start painting, I only wanted to paint the sections that had previously been painted/ lime washed, I didn't want to lime wash as it's a complete PITA but instead I've used a modern breathable paint, it's important with old stone work to make sure that everything can breath, if it can't you end up with damp problems or render falling off the walls.

Picked up an airless sprayer at a bargain price from Amazon last year in the Christmas sales:

And managed to convince the wife that she could help by doing all the fiddly cutting in:

Before and afters:

 

[Cris B]

Looking good, how many coats will you need on the walls?

I was sceptical about limewash until I used it in our timber frame house restoration. It's also incredibly cheap compared to paint.

 

[EddyP]

Most of the walls had 2 coats, some patches had 3, this seemed to cover pretty well.
Auro is the paint company, they do lots of internal colours too, it wasn't too pricey but is still more than lime wash. It doesn't cover up stains very well though, as I found out after parking the TVR in there and then moving it a few weeks later, it left it's signature behind.

 

[stu999]

Welcome along Eddy.

Great building you have there. Keep us updated with your progress.

 

[xtremek]

Subbed for the fun.

 

[Lahti35]

...after parking the TVR in there and then moving it a few weeks later, it left it's signature behind.

LOL, my garage door has those

 

[CoyoteDuster]

Really a beautiful place, the character of the stones and big timbers can't be beat. Looking forward to see how you fit it out. How old is the structure?

 

[EddyP]

Really a beautiful place, the character of the stones and big timbers can't be beat. Looking forward to see how you fit it out. How old is the structure?

It's pretty old, we think the barn was built about the same time as the house, we know the house was built in 1655.
It was a working farm until the late 80s then most of the land was sold off for housing and the other more modern tin barns were demolished.
The barn isn't as substantial a construction as the house, the walls on the house are almost 0.75 metre thick in most places! Proved a challenge when I wanted to fit an outside power socket, my 500mm long drill bits were useless, now I have 1m bits.

 

[EddyP]

Time to paint the floor!

Start off with an acid etch

Smoothed out some cracks

Got the wife giving it a clean

Getting the primer down

Now time for some top coat

Don't appear to have taken any photos when I finished painting though which was a bit of a mistake.

I did start having a look at some electrics too, got a few sockets to put in

Also started to run some trunking around the top of the walls

Haven't got many other electrical photos, need to take some.

A delivery arrived to distract me from electrics though....

 

[Cris B]

Mezzanine going in?

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Loving this build. I would be over the moon if I had a stone barn like that!

 

[EddyP]

I started to bolt some of my flat pack kit together:

Then I had to call in reinforcements

Time for some flooring

And of course a staircase is needed, I was absolutely staggered how cheap a staircase is, £145 delivered!
and it was almost as if it had been made for it!!

Better have a nice straight edge

And maybe some hand railing to stop someone jumping off, luckily a supplier at work had ordered the wrong size for their job, but it was the right size for my job!

 

[EddyP]

It's gone a bit quiet here... anyone want more?

 

[xtremek]

Of course we want more. You be silly.

 

[AZ Pete]

Lovely, your house was built 18 years after my ancestors left England for the "New World". Great project


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[bj383ss]

Man this is an awesome place. Can't wait to see how it ends. Do you have any kind of sketches or plans or is it all in your head?

Bret

 

[jon_beer]

Eddy,

love the space and the work youve done. My carriage house shop isnt as old as yours but its cool to see a different flavor of an old building getting repurposed! Subscribed!

Jon

 

[tacostand]

It's gone a bit quiet here... anyone want more?

Quit mucking about with words and get back to more pictures.

 

[Knyte Tyne]

This place has some super Character... and its not even begun yet!!!

 

[HCNDM]

Awesome space! Tagging along for the ride.

Those old buildings have so much character!


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[matt_i]

A stone barn is way cool! I was amazed at the mezzanine kit, all of the sudden a lot of guys showed up

 

[rturbo 930]

I find myself very envious of what you have there. The old stone house, the old stone barn, the Land Rover (yours?). You can find all of those things here (I'm near Philadelphia) but they aren't nearly as common, or as old. There are a few (very few) houses around here from the late 1600s, but almost none that are older. I really wish we had more of those old structures here in America like much of Europe does.

Needless to say, I'm subscribed. Looking forward to updates!

 

[Forkliftfred]

I love old stone built barns. So full of character. Unfortunately they are out of my range and few and far between down here in South Essex. They are mostly converted into trendy houses for London types. Loving the build progress, keep up the good work.

 

[EddyP]

A stone barn is way cool! I was amazed at the mezzanine kit, all of the sudden a lot of guys showed up

Always good to have some helpers, they'll all want to use it though so it's only fair
It is definitely cool! ****** freezing intact! But luckily I found one of these going spare, so gave it a new home:

I find myself very envious of what you have there. The old stone house, the old stone barn, the Land Rover (yours?). You can find all of those things here (I'm near Philadelphia) but they aren't nearly as common, or as old. There are a few (very few) houses around here from the late 1600s, but almost none that are older. I really wish we had more of those old structures here in America like much of Europe does.

Needless to say, I'm subscribed. Looking forward to updates!

Thanks, the Landie belongs to the builder that did the stone wall entrance, I would love to get one though, especially a V8 one, there's some weird quick about having a TVR and a 4X4 that basically share the same V8.
We did a big USA holiday back in June last year and had the same conversion with the owners of one of the B&Bs, we seem to be very lucky in the UK that we've got so many old places, I guess it's probably down to the methods of construction though, I'm always amazed at how quickly you guys throw up timber frame places, over here they're still quite rare.

I love old stone built barns. So full of character. Unfortunately they are out of my range and few and far between down here in South Essex. They are mostly converted into trendy houses for London types. Loving the build progress, keep up the good work.

Downsides of living down south, move up North a bit and you'll get twice for your money

On with some pics!!

Time to get some storage on that mez

Also needed some lights under the mez as everything had got quite dark now!
Found these at a car boot sale, very very cheap too!

Mounted them in some bits of painted MDF and then screwed between the steel joists

But lovely and bright!

And then with some mates, big bars and rollers we moved the lathe in too:

Managed to get a bit of stuff moved in including the other toy car:

It would appear I've not done too well taking pics lately though, must take more. I also had another pretty big delivery:

Managed to acquire a bit of wall art too:

Starting to get a bit full in here:

Maybe some shelving is needed:

And acquired some cupboards that were being chucked out at work:

Then time to fill them up:

I don't have any of the ramp being built but it's working:

 

[Brunow]

Wow good looking space! I would invest in some isolation for the roof.

Good job!

 

[EddyP]

Man this is an awesome place. Can't wait to see how it ends. Do you have any kind of sketches or plans or is it all in your head?

Bret

Sorry Bret, missed this.

No sketches or plans, just make it up as I go along really. Which most of the time works, but yesterday I found out I could have done with the 4 poster slightly further to the left, haven't made my mind up if it's worth moving it or not yet, it's fully bolted down with M16 bolts.

 

[Knyte Tyne]

Droooooool!!!

 

[Boosted1]

Looking good.
The organization you are doing makes for a better work space.

 

[old-air-performance]

its coming along very nice.
keep up the good job.

Toon