Saturday:
I constructed the two short walls into the alcove of the inner wall, at 90 degrees to the door. Adding the top plates which were screwed to the joists in-line with the sole plates. The uprights were cut to size and screwed into position securing them to the top/bottom plates and then to the outer/inner wall. I shortly realised that I was getting low on 60/80mm screws and with a quick count up I need to be a bit careful. So I got things screwed together using the minimum amount of screws (enough to secure things in position) and would go around later adding further screws to strengthen. This meant I had just enough screws to finish the short walls with the noggings in place - though not before I had burnt out the switch on my power drill!
Bear in mind that I have used this, relatively small drill, to make all the holes in the concrete level, the brickwork as well as all the clearance holes in the stud-work it decided to give up whilst drilling a 4.5mm hole in a piece of timber. This put me out of action! Luckily we have an ironmongers in the village, one of those old fashioned shops with lots of wooden drawers, wooden boxes and pots with everything you are ever likely to need. Upon asking, 'did they happen to have any power drills? I received the answer, 'do you know I think we have one somewhere! Sure enough, down from the top shelf she hands me a drill - £20. It was certainly not the best bit of kit in the world but it would get me up and running again to finish enough for now.
I then dismantled the broken drill and found where the problem lie. The switch had burnt out! Further exploration revealed that the diode inside the switch had broken down. With a quick search on the net I found a couple of Bosch spares suppliers and ordered a replacement switch. I should receive this next week so I'll have the cheapie drill as a backup in the future.
Whilst tidying up at the end of the day I walked into the outbuilding/studio only to find I had a visitor! A Hedgehog had decided to walk in and inspect the place: >>photo<< He/she had a quick wander round sniffing about for a few minutes and walked out and disappeared into the darkness. Broken drill and the hedgehog incident: >>photos<<
Monday:
After having a nice day visiting friends on Sunday I set about work. Having run out of screws on Saturday I had to get to thinking what I could that didn't require screws. OK door frame building it was. Having received excess length joists originally I made use of this timber to construct the door frame. It's fairly substantial timber (7x2") but it's going to be ideal for the frame for the inner door. The joist off-cuts are about 2m in length, so I'll only need three for the frame. Deciding on the dimensions of the door was the next thing. I had compared sizes of various doors and concluded on a frame size 700x1830mm. It's not going to be a very big door but big enough to get everything through including a person or two.
I constructing the frame with tongue and groove joints. I allowed extra length for the top/bottom as these were going to be grooved. I spent a bit of time ensuring that these were cut precisely and sure enough it fitted together very snug. I was even able to carry the assembly into the studio without being fixed.
That was pretty much it for the weekend apart from tidying up...