Hovis builds a garden office*

That's very generous of you - although it's likely going to be into next year before I start building, what with winter & newborns on the way soon.

I'm doing a bit of wishful thinking on the height restrictions at the moment - I'm within 2m of the boundary, so I'm probably going to need some sort of planning at some point, but I'm hoping to do retrospective if needed.

Luckily, that was a typo!

:D
Sounds fine then!

Nothing to report other than I put some shelves up as temporary storage whilst I work on the floor and the cat came.

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your cat looks very serious

Its place at top of the pecking order in the house has just been usurped.

Its coming along nicely!

Little update. Since last time I have managed to:

1. Osmo UV oil the cedar cladding. Much contrast, so grain.

2. Level the floor. As some of you might remember, due to a combination of my builder being a bit crap, and the concrete pump malfunctioning on the day, the foundation slab ended up being out of level and not very flat. I've been able to work around this (with much heartache) along the way, and the flooring was no exception. First I went through 10 bags of self leveling compound, which did an excellent job of flatting things out. Required a bit of work with my long spirit level to trowel it around but it was excellent. However, it's expensive and to fully sort the problem more economically, I cheated a bit and used sand to bulk up. I was sceptical of this, however I did a fair bit of research and concluded for this application this would work fine, and it has. Bit of effort again with the level to spread it around flat but after the floor went on you would never know.

3. Insulate floor. So after the above, I set about putting down the insulation panels. This was dead easy and a welcome job after the suffering that was insulating the walls. The insulation serves two purposes, first one is obvious, to insulate, the second being to build up the floor height to match the threshold of the bifold door. Once the final layer of flooring goes on it will be nice and flush. I screwed down a strip of hardwood I ripped to size at the door way to provide a rigid support to the front edge of the flooring as its a relatively high traffic zone and the edge so just a bit of precaution to stop the edge of the insulation squashing over time.

4. T&g chipboard. Chucked on a layer of dpm as per floating floor guidelines, then set about laying the flooring. This floats on top of the insulation, so I left 10mm gap around the perimeter. It was a straight forward enough job. main thing to watch out for is to get the first course dead straight using a string line (although there is some margin to play with the t&g). Glue both sides of the joints and push together. The stuff is heavy and did a nice job of pushing the insulation below down snug. I was worried the floor might feel spongy, or worse yet I would hear the sound of sand crackling but I was pleasantly suprised with how solid it feels (although forgiving on the feet), and there is no difference in terms of feel or sound between the sand parts and the rest. Happy days.

5. Vapour barriers. I elected to go down polythene sheet route as taping over studs was taking forever. Simple enough job. Staples, tape, patience.

6. Plasterboarded the ceiling. Definitely a two man job. It's quite hard to hold a board over head and screw without your arms getting tired, so i ended up making a couple of jigs to help out. Just some blocks of wood as a ledge to rest one side of the board on, and an upside broom shaped thing out of wood to jam between the floor and ceiling and also take some weight / remove sag. Was fairly straight forward. Cutting the boards is very easy with a stanley knife, a straight edge, and a karate chop at the end. One thing to note, do not cut out a skylight opening before lifting. With hindsight, it seems rather obvious that the board would snap due to the stress concentration at the cut corner. Whoops. Otherwise, lots of screws. I used a special bit with a shoulder to help drive them in to the correct depth.

That's it for now. Next step is for a plasterer to come in and skim the ceiling. Then I'll be putting in the walls (Birch ply - £££ but nice). Get the electrician in to second fix. Engineered oak flooring, clad the sides and it's done! I'm hoping to throw a Christmas piss up in there before I move my workshop in and ruin it all.

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Have been lurking in this thread since the beginning. Very impressed with your ideas, your planning and your skills. It looks great too!

Fucking epic dude!

Birch faced plywood is a great choice for the walls - are you just going to butt joint them? are you going to use them full size or rip down the middle and stagger joints?

Current plan is full size with a shadow gap (3mm?) between them. That will give vertical lines every 1.2m all the way around. Open to more aesthetically pleasing suggestions that aren't a ballache to do.

Rip them down the middle won't work as my studs are 400mm spacing, although I could always add grooves with the track saw and paint them black to match the edges. I'll will be screwing them to the studs with lost head screws and covering with wood filler.

Is the 3mm for expansion/ contraction? I think I would to put a small chamfer on the joints but I would do a mock up first.
I thought you might be running them horizontally which was why I thought ripping them down the middle might work? Again I would draw it up first to check.
Great work so far

You got me thinking, so I drew up full size sheets horizontally and staggered and it looks nice. Showed my wife and she confirms. Then I mentioned ripping them in half and she likes that even more. But it's so much more work I don't think I can face it.

My only reservation with the horizontal expansion gaps is I can imagine dust will sit there. Although perhaps easily remedied with some black silicone.

What size gap do you normally spec between boards? Also do you have an example picture of a chamfered joint? Do you butt them or leave a gap? Paint? The layers of the plywood might look odd if chamfered I'm thinking.

If you want sheets cut to size then cutwrights Is your friend. They supply very high quality sheet materials (including birch ply) that are cut to size on a CNC and will deliver to you.

Looking really great!

I don't see the hardwood strip that you mentioned - is it below the chipboard?

I can see some sort of taping in the ceiling corners too - more vapour barrier?

Butt joints would be quick to do and would look good, but you'd probably have to reinforce them with dowel pins. Or maybe wood filler instead of black silicone so it looks like there isn't a gap?

Ta. Too late though, took delivery of the Birch this morning. I'm pleasantly suprised of the quality as I went for the cheapest I could find (Builder Depot). No damage to any of the sheets during transit either.

I have the facility to cut them, just I'm running low on time, my electrician is away for the entirety of Dec, and I'm away on business next week so that give me 3 days to get the walls up and other miscellaneous activities. Would normally be fine but I juggle with daddy time which makes it tricky.

cutwrights

If I sketched up a free-standing / wall mounted media unit (cupboards & shelves), would it be worth getting them to do the cutting?

Yeah it's below the chipboard. Cut to the same height of the insulation and about 40mm wide. Screwed directly to the slab. In hindsight, a strip of dpc wouldn't have hurt. Probably could have used some softwood but I figured it's direct on the slab and under a vapour barrier so to avoid any risk of rot I may as well use my trusty length of Sappele I salvaged from a door a couple of years ago.

Its not something I've specified at work but if it was a project at home I wouldn't bother with the gaps, plywood is very stable due to the cross laminations - I would just ensure there is a gap at the corners as you would with an engineered floor.
I've not got any examples but I've done it before and looks fine, only talking about 3-4mm just to make any differences between the boards less obvious. I've some off cuts at home and always have a chamfered cutter in my palm router so would only take five minutes to mock one up if needed?
I would also be concerned about using filler over the screw heads especially if you are going to have an oiled finish - sometimes the oil doesn't take as well and it would highlight all the screw holes. I would consider some nice torx head screws but this might not be a look you are happy with or glue and some lost head pins which would need less filler?

The tape is aluminium foil tape, I used this to tape the vapour barrier to the stud walls. I also bridged the gap with this tape to the cavities between the roof joists at the front and back wall, so it was one continuous barrier up to the bottom of the OSB roof deck (which in turn has its own vapour barrier which I put down before laying down the roof insulation)

some black silicone.

Please reconsider. The cartridges or sachets of 'silicone' sealant we can buy from builders' merchants or Toolstation/Screwfix type places have very poor water vapour transmission rates.
(The major suppliers of silicone sealants can offer specialist 2-part silicone facade sealants, used in plate glass envelopes for prestigious buildings, but these type of sealants are not readily available to civillians).
A polyurethane or hybrid/MS sealant will have much better unprimed adhesion to the cut Birch ply edges, and much reduced water vapour transmission rates.
You could choose to support Soudal, (who sponsor a World Tour cycling team).
Both Soudal FC40, a PU sealant and Soudal 215LM, a hybrid MS sealant are available in black.

Yes. Its very accurate and straightforward. You will need to make a cutting list from your sketches then enter that into their website. You need to register an account for this.

@pryally

Ta. Thanks for your suggestions, I'll figure it out from here thanks. I was already planning on using lost-tite screws which have a small head (and torx). Will take care to space them evenly, and possibly leave them as is. Will decide afterwards. I can see it being useful to leave them exposted tbh should I ever need to take them down for whatever reason.

@mespilus Thanks! I have used the toolstation cheap stuff so far and have a bit left over. I had no idea there was a disparity between them. I was planning on trying Soudal next purely for the fact they sponsor a cycling team. To be honest I doubt I'll bother filling the gaps at all.

Hi, my concern is with your expensive (waterproof) Birch ply,
and water vapour within your desirable home office,
will. with any rise in temperature essentially be pumped through thr weakest point in your envelope, which would have been black one-part silicone.
After you have invested all the time and materials in vapour-proofing your structure,
the water vapour would then be trapped behind the Birch ply, with nowhere to go.