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Operation Man Cave-part 2- The Saga Continues!

OK time for an update.
So the last thing I wrote was about the Friday-arrival day.

On Saturday I awoke to grey skies, although not yet raining I could tell that a down pour was imminent. A friend of mine who lives just round the corner gave me a call and asked if I was going to do any work on the cabin that day if so he would give me a hand. I thought might as well try and get some more done. I called my dad and said the cabin build was on and he came over as well.

This is where the trouble started.

We continued with the build. First putting the 6m long log above the front door frame, jostling with the log and lining up the 4 widows and double door frame. It went in pretty quick no problem. We continued to build up the sides and back.

This would prove to be an learning curve. When we came to put the 6m log across the back, above the door frame we found that it would not fit. It was approximately 10mm out, meaning one of the ends of the log notched out was resting on the inside of the joining log. Confused at how this could be we concluded that the bearers were the culprit as they were warped and although the concreate base was only a few mm out the torque on the bearers and the gap between the base and bearers was about 20mm. this we concluded the cabin was twisting. We decided to pack up the base with wood and level the floor this would surely sort this problem out.... WRONG!

Packing up the floor actually made this worse. Putting the back wall log interlocking notch out by 25mm a whole inch. Scratching our heads we took out the packing under the bearers. It was then that my dad had an idea. We would "modify" the log by cutting out the locking section by 5mil each side to make the log fit. Making a face like that bloody meerkat on the telly SIMPLES!

It could only get worse. We spent the next hr shaving wood off this log and trying it, cutting more then trying it again only then to discover that if we did this in turn would have a knock on effect on the rest of the upward build as the next log would not fit and would have to be "modified". At this point I can only describe my actions as A 3yr old...I threw a WOBBLER! We had just spent 2hrs packing, un packing the floor, shaving, cutting, pushing & pulling this one log to make it fit and then the rest of the cabin would not fit!

At point I had a moment of clarity. Like a child having a tantrum and then stopping dead mid flow because it was offered a chocolate bar. Staring up at that tall figure that would have been an adult but in this case it was the door frame at the back of the cabin. I got up on a ladder and looked down the side of the frame. There was a good 25mm gap between one side of the frame and the right side back wall. Obviously as we had cut a hole the back wall was now a left and right side with door frame in middle.

We had cut down the back log relatively straight and the door frame was a snug fit. But too sung. I now realise that this is why you get that extra 40mm each side of the door frame in the bezel so that expansion/settlement or some plonker not cutting the wood dead straight would have a little bit of give.

This meant that the door frame had to come out. By this time the rain was coming down hard. The damp proof membrane for keeping the damp out was doing a great job of keeping it in, with the sections of floor barers filling up with water fast.

Soaked to the core we dismantled the cabin. All the progress made on the Friday was being undone. We took off the 6m log from the front and then took down the right side of the Cabin. This only took 30mins as the cabin was not interlocked all way round because we had cut the back logs for the door frame. Getting the door frame out we then rebuilt the right side of the cabin up level to the left. We then trimmed another 20mm off the right side and then standing on ladders lowered the door frame back into the hole.

Taking a mallet (the pursuader) and a block of wood I then went round to the back right corner of the side wall and pursuaded the feck out of it, pushing it into the door frame. This worked very well.
VERY LUCKLY the manufacturer gives you ONE spare 6m back log, don't know why they just do. And we put it across the top of the back door frame and it went straight in!.
 
By now it was 3pm. It was ****ing down, and we were drenched. But we were now back to where we were on Friday evening,

I did not take pictures of the epic **** up and how we resolved it as I want to forget it happened!
After the door frame It was only 1 log each side before the apex front and back were ready to go on. With a little help from my neighbour we managed to get these up. 1hr and we had done this

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With the apex and eaves now in place it was starting to take shape. I was worried as although it had stopped raining for a bit it was forecast to continue throughout the night. If I didn't do something I would have a swimming pool not a games room and as the wood was not treated apart from the bearers I was worried about the wood getting soaked through. I went into a local machine mart and picked up. Tarpaulin that I thought would do the job. 40ft long 20ft wide tarp for £40. Big is best. The tarp went from floor to floor a long the cabin and covered the roof eaves or a make shift roof.

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I had to get up 3 times that night to go and push the water that had gathered in huge bulges out of the tarp must have been about 10 litres in one of them but the tarp held up.

Sunday was dry and after mopping the water out from inside the bearers. We cracked on with the roof. 19mm tongue and groove. These went on quick. With only a few springing but were easily sorted

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If it makes you feel any better I put two of my roof joists in backwards. Only discovered this when half the roof had been done. Had to take it all off again!

We also had a similar problem with the base not being quite square, so the final wall log didn't quite fit with the door frame. Couldn't face taking it all apart again so cut it to size.

Are you tiling it this weekend?
 
Looking great so far. Really good that you got to the bottom of the problem too.

Sod's law with the weather. You certainly don't expect such crappy weather at the end of August.
 
Well it's been another week so time for an update.

I was working 6 days last week, from 23rd-30th. The 1st was my first wedding anniversary.
I'm now on two weeks off. Time to get this project sorted.

With the roof boards on the roof was recovered with the huge Tarpaulin until I decided what to do with the roof.

Monday - I was thinking that with only the 19mm floorboards to go down on top of the bearers and with the weight of 10 pins on the floor as well as a group of blokes playing them it needed reinforcing. I decided to go with 12mm ply. A trip to Wickes to sort out ply.
Whilst there I picked up the ply and 12 dry wall sockets. I went for 12 double and 6 single socket which I will go into later.

I also had a look at the PIR insulation boards made by Celotex, they come in 25,50 & 100mm widths. I would think about what thickness I would want due space requirements.

I don't think I mentioned this before, but I wanted the cabin to look more like a games room, I decided that although 45mm wood was quite thick, With the pins going in I wanted to insulate it. The price of the cabin was £4175 with double glazing and extra door. I had promised the wife that this project would be 5K all in. That was the budget for the smaller 5mx4m cabin. And know the 5K was done with the cabin and the cost of the base. This was going to be a expensive project!

For a 5.9x4m 'dual wall' cabin was £1800 more, And £2600 more with insulation! Dual wall is basically outer wall logs and then another inner wall made of shorter logs to give you a cavity. Insuallation was the PIR stuff 100mm thick. This would seriously reduce the cabin internal size taking 13cm off each wall. With the budget spent I needed to save some cash and source what I needed cheaper...I was now eating into PIN MONEY.


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Of course when getting the ply into the cabin nothing goes to plan, and laying it out the ply needed to be cut as the walls of the cabin were not quite square due to the wood settling durning the week and the bearers not being totally square. You can see the bearers are quite wide apart. The 12mm ply and the 19mm floor should be OK for the floor of the cabin.

The boards are screwed in, not nailed so that they could be bought up if needed. I left the right side boards un screwed so the electric cabling could be installed.
 
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The cabin I wanted to look more like a room, I like the look of a log cabin, but I don't like the look of a log cabin with white trunking running round the walls to sockets etc. I wanted a more professional look. I wanted all sockets/switches to be in the wall. As I mentioned the price for a dual wall cabin was £5600. I could not justify that extra money for the extra wooden logs to make up the second wall. And I wanted it insulated. I decided to go for fire retardant plasterboard, I'm not going to plaster it, but paint it instead. This should look OK.

This is where my second problem came along. Log cabins need to settle, they expand and contract with the weather at different times of the year. This is ongoing. I was planning on battening the side and back walls to put insulation and secure plasterboard to. I had in fact picked up the battening from Wickes. This would severely restrict the wood from its natural behaviour.

This was a big issue for me. I didn't want to restrict the cabins movement. I was stumped. Remembering my visit to View the cabins at DunsterHouse I remembered seeing the cabins had storm braces on each corner. These were battens with a hole at one end to secure to the top of the cabin at its apex, and at the bottom an elongated vertical slot with a bolt. The object was as the cabin expands the bolt slides up/down with the wood.

I had a plan and that was to make each batten the same as theses braces, but with a slot in the middle and at the bottom. This I hope will create a wall that will move up and down with the cabin and so will not crack the plasterboard if it was fixed in one place.
 
This meant modifying the 18 battens I had bought. I do not own a router and the batten 47mm thickness meant it would have to be a good one. So my dad came up with how to make the slot, drilling three holes going vertically with a bit that widens as it goes down (sorry don't know the correct name for said bit) to create a recess. Then drilling three more holes with a smaller drill bit and filing the holes to meet to make the slot. The reason for the recess into the wood was to put the screw head and washer in so that the plasterboard could go over the top of the head.

VERY time consuming. Below are some of the battens with slots cut into them. Several had to be measured as they go up to the apex as so not to go into the tongue and grove of the log the slots had to go into the centre of the log. image.jpg

Tuesday - Meanwhile I gave the cabin a paint job.
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I went for RONSEAL 5YR wood stain/preservative in NATURAL OAK.
 

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Wednesday-Friday
with dad still working on the remaining battening I had put up a vapour sheet on the side walls and attached what battening was already available. I decided that I would go for the 50mm thick insulation. The battening was 47mm thick,3mm slimmer than the insulation. To bring the battening out we used a sheet of 3mm ply I had lying around to pack behind the battens
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Insulation board was easy enough to cut using a Stanley knife. The boards all had to be cut to size. They are 1200x2400 same as a sheet of plasterboard but needed to go between the battens, where the plasterboard needs to overlap.
 
Keep it coming Dave - giving me lots of useful information here for when I (hopefully) do this myself one day. I keep eyeing up the garden. It's a little small out there but I reckon I could easily get a building big enough for 3 or 4 outside.

:)
 
Well after 2 weeks of hard graft the cabin is almost there...
Battens all went in and the insulation. Next was the electrics. I wanted to be able to run all my games at the same time, currently I have 5 in the house, 2 stashed at a friends and 2 on way. so total is 9 pins. i also wanted to have two heaters at a maximum of 2Kw each, a TV, beer fridge and two light boxes. I asked on group what each game consumes. The consensus was around 4amps. So I wanted to make sure that the wiring could handle it.
First I had to upgrade the house fuse from 60amp to 80amp. This was possible but any higher and would have to do some serious electrical revamping and get the electric company to come and do this.

The parts I ordered

35mtr 10mm armoured cabling.
80amp RCD with box for connection to house mains
Consumer unit with 60amp RCD main switch
2x32amp breaker
1x16amp breaker
2x10amp breaker

The cabin has two ring mains on a 32amp breakers, one powering 3 double and 1 single socket. The other 5 double, 2 single sockets.

The 16amp was to power the two heaters one on each side but my electrician changed this to 2 10amp breakers as he said if one was to overload then it would not shut off and could cause the wiring to burn resulting in crispy pinballs and cabin.

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The wiring was run in between the insulation.
Next was the running of the 10mm armoured cable. This was a mission. First we ran the cabling into the house. Moving the decking and then drilling through the external wall at a 30 degrees, through external, cavity and internal wall was harder than I thought! The kitchen is part of a two story extension and so the wall between the kitchen and house is the external wall I was going as low as the foundation. When it came to drilling the drill made no match for the wall, it was solid. Luckily there was a wire already coming through the wall a little further down and with a little chisel action the hole would accommodate the cable
 
Forgot to mention I had the roof professionally roofed the same as flat roof, with breathable membrane, underlay and cap sheet, bitumen was flame gunned. 25yr guarantee.
 
With all the electrics in place and the cable run from the house into the cabin the next thing was to measure up and put the plasterboard on. The batten had been put on the walls so that the width of the plasterboard would not have to be altered, just the length and the angled slope cut. The sockets I wanted in the middle of the plasterboard at waist height. This will hide the pinball leads and other leads hopefully giving a cleaner look.


After the plasterboard was up the sockets were Put in and the electrician connected up the armoured cable and checked the circuits. The plasterboard was painted and the sockets put back on. There were some gaps at the top and bottom of the plasterboard due to the cabin running slightly downhill but we mounted the battening straight vertically making the plasterboard run out so I added some trim the floor and skirting board went down easily
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The finish in there looks amazing, not at all a shed at the bottom of the garden but a luxury garden room. Great work and thanks again for sharing the pictures as it gives us inspiration and motivation to do the same.
 
Thanks Gents, I sanded the floor to the cabin on Monday, tuesday hoovered it/dusted and today I am going to varnish it. By tomorrow the floor will be done and Pinballs moved in. The radiators arrived this morning, beer fridge is being picked up today by a friend so its all coming together quite quickly!

I'm looking forward to getting them out the house, but not going to be playing them for a while as got the baby's room to decorate! Well maybe a few games ;-)
 
That is a cool fridge!! Oh yeah and I thought I spotted an A list title or 5 in the background!! Holy crap. Ha ha.
 
Looking good Davey Boy!

Now all the hard work is done I might pop round for a visit!

Whats the crack with insurance now, does your contents still cover you if they are in an 'outbuilding'? I might go down this route eventually as I'm running out of room.
 
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