Part one
Valvolux Amplifiers needed a permanent home, so high on
the list of requirements when choosing an abode back in 2008 was a suitable
garage or similar enclosed area that could be converted into a reasonably
secure and insulated workspace for me to tinker in. It was important to provide
a space that Valvolux could grow into without getting too cramped in the forseeable future.
So it was a stroke of fortune that my wife and I both
fell in love with the house that is now our home, which just happened to have a
large 2 car brick garage out the back. Much to my wife's delight I was
determined to make this shed the most awesome room in the whole house.
With the rest of the house crumbling around us and
biting off way more than we could chew we threw ourselves into some serious
renovation work. (It is a testament to this that we spent the first year of our
residency here sleeping in the loungeroom).
Brick, concrete and tin shell full
of our 'stuff'
The shed was just a brick, concrete and tin shell of
approximately 10 x 3.6 metres in dimension. A very large dog had been living in
it and it really didn't smell too good. My plan was to turn it into a secure,
well insulated and comfortable room in which I'd be happy to spend long hours
working on electronics but also with a small
area down one end for entertaining guests and receiving customers (and maybe we
can fit a small bar in too – ed). I had a really good idea of what I wanted in
my head so drawn up plans weren't necessary, I just decided to go for it and
solve each problem as it arose.
The first job to tackle was replacing the rusting
corrugated iron roof with zinc aluminium. I wanted to ensure absolutely no
leaks in this building and to also negate any possibility of having to replace
the roof later on down the track.
With the parts ordered and delivered we of course had
to choose an insanely hot weekend in the middle of summer to work on a hot tin
roof.
With the help of some mates we set about pulling the
old sheets off, giving the woodwork a really good clean(including discovering
the previous owner's little stash of naughty pictures cut neatly out of
magazines and then crumpled up and stuffed into the eaves...strange indeed).
Cleaning out the stickmag stash!
Great view from up here, looking
forward to getting the shed roof vegetable garden happening one day. The
Dandenongs are there somewhere in that low cloud
With the new roofing sheets already cut to size it was
a fairly simple but physical task to put them in one by one and then secure the
whole lot with hundreds of tek screws.
Last one almost in. With thanks to Chris, Marco and Nanne
And so now with a new roof on it was time to start
thinking interiors, this will be covered more fully in part two to be published
soon.
