The Workshop Project.

I’d been planning on rebuilding the old delapidated barn in our garden for a couple of years, but when we went into lockdown in 2020 I realised that this was the perfect opportunity to complete the project much quicker.

And with enough space to build a workshop I was able to open Crankworkshop.

The old barn was on it’s last legs, very rotten in places, and very unstable. The rebuild was essential but we wanted to try and maintain the look and character of the barn as much as we could, and improve it at the same time.

Stripping down the old cladding was quick and easy, but removing the clay tiles from the roof took a long time. I was keen to keep as many tiles as possible and use them again on the new barn.

The brick work at the base of the barn was in terrible condition. A lot of the bricks needed replacing, and a lot of the mortar was gone. I carefully replaced one brick at a time and rebuilt sections of the base entirely.

With the new timber delivered I was ready to start work on replacing all the rotten timber with new, and then reinforcing the entire structure to make it a lot stronger and sturdier than before.

The roof was so tricky. The old timber had all sagged and warped over time, a lot of it was rotten as well. I decided to leave the old timber in place and put a new timber beam alongside every old one. Each new beam had to be sized up individually to fit.

Once I had a flat surface to work with I could start rebuilding the roof. I laid a waterproof membrane to ensure good weather resiliance. I then laid roof battens ready for the clay tiles to go back on. There was enough spare membrane to wrap the entire barn which I hadn;t planned for but worked out nicely.

With the battens up I could start tiling the roof. This took a very long time! Each tile was a different shape and size, so each tile laid was a decision to find the best fit with the adjacent tiles. I was able to carry about 15 tiles at a time up the ladder so it was slow progress. And even with my MTB knee pads on it was still hard work kneeling/crouching on the roof battens all day long.

Now for the finishing touches. I built the doors next, and now that the barn was weathproof I weas able to start work on the interior.

I painted the floors, laid carpet in the worskhop, and began to build my workshop.

I worked out of this workshop for the first 4 years of trading. But now I’ve moved into a new and improved workshop.