Access to the mezzanine floor was to be provided via a centrally located staircase that would still allow a car to be stored in one side of the garage. Some people have suggested that it would have been better located against the gable wall to give more access to the central area of the garage, but there were two reasons this was decided against. Firstly, the wall area was to be used for all manner of storage racking and eventually solar energy/water management equipment and secondly, access off the top of the staircase was desired to be as easy as possible without having to duck round rafters etc. hence the decision was made to locate it more centrally. An aperture was left in the floor to facilitate this and the staircase was bespoke built in situ from engineered timber rails and treads with softwood risers before being given two coats of clear yacht varnish.
Staircase being built and installed.
The new side and barn doors (which were custom made to the bespoke size) were given several coats of Sadolin before being installed and the outside walls were then repointed to help prevent further water ingress.
Repointing and new doors installed.
On to the home straight now with just the floor and wiring/lighting to take care of. A new consumer unit fed off the incoming supply for the cottage was installed in the garage and copious LED strip lighting was installed as you can never have too much light in a garage. Six double sockets were also installed with all the cables for the sockets and switches hidden in conduit to keep everything neat.
For the flooring after much research an interlocking rubberised tile solution was settled upon as this would provide a good cover for the concrete floor (which tended to dust up even after sealing), could stand the weight of a car, would be easy to replace a section of if damage occurred and could be easily laid as it was just a matter of putting it down and cutting the edges to size with a jigsaw. The only real issue was with the ramp pieces that were intended to go across the door opening as these wouldn’t sit flat so eventually were abandoned in place of a single specialised rubber door threshold that the floor was cut to butt up to.
The interlocking floor being installed and the LED strip lights in place.
The project was now essentially complete and all that remained was to put the car away, install the racking and store the tools.
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