The roof is on :-)

Is there any particular reason why the top of the window frames is higher than the top of the door frames? That looks very strange.

I'm not sure I agree that it looks good. It looks like a pair of semi-detached bungalows. It dwarfs the house and totally dominates the garden.. I just thank God I'm not one of your neighbours. What on earth is it for?

In message , David WE Roberts writes

You might find *wicking* problems with the eaves drip. Rainwater tends to crawl back up the underside on very shallow pitch. I have tweaked the edge to form a positive drip on some of mine.

Traditionally one uses a 200mm x 200mm 90deg barge board to finish off the sides:-)

regards

In article , Bruce scribeth thus

Obvious innit;!, its a Husband sanctuary to take refuge from a nagging SWMBO!...

I hope it will be filled with cool machines :)

I'll bet that David does, too.

Errrr, are you known as 'The Major' in your area?

Since its obscured on the right and half the back by trees, and matched by the neighbours building to the left, I can't see it will look particularly out of place once finished.

Had a look from a neighbour's garden and it is barely visible above the fence. It does reinforce why the planning rules set a maximum height, though :-)

Dwarfs which house?

I think you may be confusing the single garage (to the right of the picture) with a house? The block built shed is replacing the single garage and the wooden shed as a workshop and store. It occupies about the same footprint as next door's two large wooden sheds but is lower because of the flat roof. Oh, and most of our neighbours seem to have a garden building of similar size or larger. They are fortunate, however, to have longer gardens. Once the garage has been removed the garden will be more balanced.

Complicated reasons for the tops of the windows and doors being out of line, linked to a change in roof design part way through the build. and a change in the internal design to bring the windows one course higher. The windows were going to be at worktop level for the two benches but we decided to have a course of blocks above the benches as a 'backstop' and also somewhere to mount electrical sockets in the fullness of time.

Cheers

Dave R

Perhaps I should have written "Just thank God I'm not one of your neighbours." ;-)

Thanks for clarifying that.

Why not just raise the sill but keep the top at the same height?

Perhaps you had already bought the windows ....

It does show the disbenefits of designing something like this on the hoof. I must admit that I have been surprised to see your postings on here at each stage asking how to design the next bit. I would always aim to have all but the smallest details sorted before work started to ensure that problems like this were less likely to occur.

I say 'less likely' because we all know that problems do tend to arise during construction because of things that were unforeseen, or clients who change their mind. But the aim should always be to try to foresee as near to everything as humanly possible. This in the certain knowledge that unforeseen problems can be time-consuming, expensive and upsetting to fix, or leave the structure looking as though it was designed by a committee.

In this case, uk.d-i-y appears to have been that committee. ;-)

Considered that, but decided that the extra light was more important than a straight line across the lintels. Originally they were in line, but at the 4 course level we decided that it would be better to go up one course for reasons as already described. No extra width available, so the windows had to go up one course. At least it is symetrical :-)

Block design was changed when I discovered how hard it was to cut concrete blocks so the plan for a sloping side wall was ditched.

One lesson learned is that next time I would use a soft block then render. Specifically because the hard blocks are such a bast*rd to cut. They just eat diamond blades.

Cheers

Dave R

You can usually cut a small way through and then use a chisel and hammer. Saves diamonds !

I've heard bad things about soft block for outside walls. You have to use a flexible render to allow for thermal expansion of the blocks. If rendering, best to use the medium density concrete, but not aircrete.

Simon.

At least you won't have to render them.

Your blocklaying looks neat, certainly better than I could manage. And my rendering is even worse. ;-)