Sunday, June 22, 2014

How to build a small house in a corner of your garden.

There are many reasons why I have not had time to up-date the blog as frequently as I used to and this is the main one!
 
When building a house on a small plot it is very important to find a place that has the right light, ground, elevation and place in relation to all other buildings on the plot. In this case we choose a corner that we have hardly used at all before with some tall trees that we thought would give some shade. It is also a bit higher than the rest of the surrounding area enhancing the view. The main problem was to find spots to dig the holes we needed for the plinths.
 

After trying various places, we eventually found spots where we could dig eight holes about 50 cm deep.
 
In each hole we put some macadam in the bottom and forms of paper to put the cement in. A small cement mixer made it fairly easy to mix the cement.
  


To be able to fasten the foundation for the floor on which the house would stand, I choose adjustable joist hangers to make it as easy as possible to get the foundation / floor absolutely even.



 
 
 
Finally the truck with all building blocks, nuts and bolts arrived. They truck was too big to take the stuff all the way so we had to load it on a trailer and move it that way the last hundred meters.
 
 
 Plenty of bits and pieces to put together!!!
  
 
 
 

The first step is to lay the foundation. It must be perfectly level and all angels exactly as they should be or the glass panes would not fit, the roof  leak and so on.

The pillars for the wall also had to be exactly vertical or the rest of the house would not be as expected.


  The roof is made of polypropylene to keep the temperature down a bit and to withstand branches that might fall down from all the trees around the house.


It is only 9 m2 but still large enough for a table and four chairs!


Although we have only had it for a couple of weeks we really love it and use it far more than we thought we would. It is such a good feeling to sit inside it, listen to the birds and the wind in the trees while as the same time be protected from both the wind and mosquitoes.

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