Cottage-253

2015.03.05: Unsure of our ability to sever ties with CoJ in the short term we’re investing our time and effort into Cottage-253, a semi-off grid garage conversion. When complete, it will be a 2.5 bedroom, 1 bathroom, 1 garage dwelling, capable of housing the ‘tweens during the study years and providing us with a crash-pad between CoJ and CoCT. Once finished it will provide further options on funding the future allowing multiple rental options in CoJ or improving the resale value should we one day finally manage to cash in the chips up here.

The current garage and carport

Draft plans for an off-grid cottage

Years of accumulated junk are clogging the site of the new kitchen and bathroom and so we’ve needed to make space, out of the weather to store those items that we’ll re-use in the build. Also, the workbench and tools need to be relocated. So we’ve taken down the carport and re-used the beams to build a new toolroom/workshop/store. At present it’s only a roof surrounded by existing walls but eventually it will be totally walled off to provide more secure storage for workshop and tools. This has entailed moving the trailer to it’s new parking spot as well.

Area earmarked for the new workshop and store

As with all ventures, it’s good to have a plan – however rudimentary.

The trailer is going to end up here

2015.05.02: And, after a little bit of work, things are starting to take shape. All the gum poles and fence material were lying around the property, so the only things bought for this stage were concrete and roofing material.

The new store/workshop area complete

The front and left sides here will eventually be closed off to provide a totally enclosed, secure area.

Cool recycled timber rustic fence to screen the trailer from prying eyes in the street

2015.06.03: Meanwhile, back down the garden the timber frame add-on bedroom is starting to take shape.

Foundations dug…

Foundations dug and measured [just in case of retrospective queries]

This was the trickiest one on the edge of the terraced area

2015.07.04: The foundations and planting of the additional gum poles has taken the most time so far, but now that the 6 posts are all up and set we’re hoping to start making rapid progress here. The floor structure is taking shape…..

The result of a single Saturday afternoon’s work. We started by installing the outer beams and are now placing the cross members which will take the decking/floor timbers. The plan is to lay a plastic vapour/vermin cover down, followed by a layer of insulation and capped off with the flooring boards. Once all the additional supports are installed under the beams this will be the most solid floor we’ve built to date.

2015.07.25 and the main rafters are in place

Rafters up

Many hands, light work. All up in an afternoon

Working on the main roof rafters

2015.08.16 We’ve taken a break this last couple of weekends, needing to check on other interests down in Simons Town. Now that we’re back in CoJ, another half-day’s work has seen all the purlins mounted. Ready to take the roof now!

Purlins up – now just waiting for the corrugated roof.

2015.08.22 The hardest job of all is done!

Main roof up – hardest job done.

2015.09.01 Spring is here and we’re racing to get the remainder of the roof on before the rains start.

2015.09.12 and the north roof supports are in place, ready for action.

Inside out

outside in

2015.09.13 We’ve added a little too much flooring for comfort considering the building isn’t yet water-tight.

Roof and Floors…but no walls !?

Inspector Rusty

2015.09.15 Rain, rain and more rain. Let’s hope we don’t need to redo the floor :-/.

Damn It !! We’ll have to take it all out and redo.

Up with the floors, letr them dry and let’s focus on getting the walls up and weathertight before we do that again!

2015.11.03 We’re experimenting with the “hidden” east wall first. [Unsure of what swaths of corrugated will look like]. Now that we’ve clad the bottom section and placed the windows I’m thinking it won’t look too bad after all.

East Wall – halfway there.

2015.11.29 and we’re really flying. The north wall is almost complete. We’ve mounted both the door and window and almost all the cladding is done. Only thing left for the north wall is the fiddly job of neatening up the corners and edges. Progress has been made!

Door and window in, cladding up. 98% there on this wall

The inner walls will be insulated and clad once the building is water-tight

Time for a break

2015.12.30 – Progress lately has been slow, very slow. Due mainly to the gates of hell opening and the temperature soaring!! It’s been too hot to work much lately, but today saw a bit of a temperature drop and a subsequent spurt of building took place.