I refurbished the front windows of the house and they are now looking good!

We had a new fence constructed:

I’ve done a lot of reconfiguring of the network cabinets, including a new 24port Gigabit router, that I had to replace the noisy fans of:

…and I’ve just added a solar powered ventilator to the shed office.

More details on all of these items later.

First I built a framework from 3 of 2×4″ joists. I wanted a full 2.8 metre span without any legs so I needed a pretty strong frame.

It was actually quite hard to keep these level due to the wide span, so I had use to use my luxury laser spirit level. Well I probably could have done without, but I hardly use it and it was expensive!

Since the panelling is a full 22mm thick I was able to screw it direct, however, I did add some substantial legs to hold them.

Here’s it finished:

…and here’s it is in action:

I looked on Google and came across Kirkpatrick. These appear to be a good brand, and have been made the same way for about 150 years. You cannot buy direct, and so I ordered them from ‘Any Old iron‘. These are identical designs to the B&Q ones, except these are heavier and just look better quality. They are made from malleable iron, as opposed to the cheap ‘whatever’ of the other ones. As their suppliers website says ‘The ” KIRKPATRICK” range is still made by hand today in a traditional English ironfoundry in the Midlands.’.

The Kirkpatrick handle is the one on the right in all photos. Check out the finer detail.

Goes to show you that you get what you pay for, except these ones cost the same as the cheap ‘quality’ ones… Sheesh!

Here’s a few obvious pictures from the last few days. Quite picturesque, and it’s actually helped us test out the heating of the house, and have a few insulation glitches sorted out.

If you’ve been following this blog through the year, then thanks for reading and a very merry Christmas and all the best for 2010!

I have a proper ring main with a 30amp box. Ten double sockets, and 2 lights on a separate circuit, and also an external PIR. IF you are interested click through on an image and you’ll see the wires in the ‘Don’t Cut Through Wiring’ set.

Now that the electricity was live I could start working on making this into a proper office. That is finish the networking, and get myself a desk! I intend to use some 2×3 timbers and a solid wood kitchen worktop to make a desk, but in the meantime I used some of the surplus flooring chipboard and two trestles. Seems solid enough!

I was unsure what to use for the shed floor. I wanted something cheap, easy to lay and low maintenance. I guess all three was a tall order, yet the bamboo flooring I ended up with might just do. It was fairly cheap, looks good and was very easy to lay. The floor consists of 100mm non-foil Kingspan on a concrete base. A DPM (that runs to the ceiling with glued 1 metre overlaps where necessary. Over the DPM is 22mm TGV flooring chipboard. I used some thin underlay (not sure this was strictly necessary, then floated the bamboo over the top. Took me about 2 afternoons in total to do the floor. I’ve the skirting to finish, but for the moment, the shed is almost ready for action!

I am regretting all those plug and network sockets though! That 20mm board is a pain to cut out!

I got the network cabling done in a day. This is fed by 4 x cat6 cables coming underground (outside grade cable buried in a PVC pipe about 0.5 metres below ground) into a patch panel, then 16 cat6 cables around the office. Perhaps overkill, but it’s a lot more flexible. Incidentally one of those cat6 cables will be a phone line.

The cable looks a little messy by running around the floor, then up to each socket. However, I wanted to keep it as far away from the ring main as possible.

The insulation is properly finished now, and the first fix electrical is done.

And the “apero corner”

Everything is in, I confirm…

Some things are still outside and on the patio (and in the sheds !). Thanks to the dry and sunny weather :