Hey friends,

I can't think of anything interesting to write about this week so DIY and office modifications it is...

🔨 Garage Roof Demolition

There really ought to be a wrecking ball emoji.

On Saturday Joe and I set to work on the garage roof and started by pulling up the tattered sinusoidal bitumen/felt to reveal the wooden boards underneath. They were in worse condition than I expected; wet rot, dry rot and woodworm abound but of those that came off intact, with a heavy soaking of wood preserver, they might just be good enough to cover one of the internal walls of the workshop, so that's good.

After trying to prise them up and failing, I ran the circular saw along each side and levered them free of the middle joist and passed them down to Joe.

This is where I'm up to and I'm now questioning my idea of joists > OSB > rubber.

The existing cross joists (pink arrows) are in good condition and can stay. They'll be useful for storing timber on and hanging ladders, and they hold the two long walls together. The joists running perpendicular (orange arrows) are rotten and need to go. If however I replace these then I could simply fasten metal sheeting to them (I do need to check permissible spans though). I could even have a translucent fibreglass one in the centre as a roof-light. This would be a lot cheaper given OSB and timber prices. I checked and combined they would cost over £600 for this roof.

Metal sheeting won't be as sturdy but it's definitely the quicker option as I am wary of the weather changing soon. The evenings have also shortened noticeably so I really need to get a move on. Perhaps I'm just a fair-weather builder, I'm always impressed by how many people tackle garden rooms in the dead of winter. Kudos.

The other thing is that joists would have taken the garage above 2.5m. Between you and me I wasn't overly bothered as the garage is already on the plans of the house, my neighbour's workshop is significantly taller and there's an almost zero chance of complaints but it's another tick in the box for metal sheeting. As long as it's strong enough that's probably the route I'll go down.

I can't remember if I've said what we'll use the garage for:

• timber store.
• garden tools so I can get rid of the old shed.
• other large and rarely used tools like my concrete breaker.
• as time goes on, probably a bunch of the kiddo's garden toys.
• storage of bikes and other random stuff currently in the integral garage since we'll be turning that into a living space.

----

Ah, that last bullet point makes me think of something I can riff on after-all. I'll caveat first by saying, I know we're not exactly hard-up.

The wealthier you are the less stuff you need.

It sounds contradictory but hear me out. Our garage is filled with what can only really be labelled as junk. Left over insulation, window board, small bits of skirting. I keep it because I know that at some point I'll find a use for it, like that curtain pole I mentioned last week that had been knocking about for the best part of a decade - finally useful and saved us 40-odd quid. All this stuff is taking up space, both actual and mental. There's even stuff in there I know I don't want but it has some value, I just haven't gotten around to putting it on ebay yet.

However, a wealthier person can simply throw or give this stuff away and then when they need more insulation or whatever they just buy it again, no worries.

It kinda sucks as I don't like clutter but there is something useful one can do with this info - if you join some facebook forums in wealthy areas you can get some really great things for nowt. For example, my neighbour picked up a very high end kitchen under a year old that the owners had decided didn't match their personalties anymore, he just had to dismantle it, and we got this very premium cot for nothing.

Anyway, if I ever become a minimalist you'll know I've made it 😉.

🖥️ Workspace Optimisation

I've made a couple of minor improvements to my workspace. The first was a foldable hook to hang my headphones on, which I attached to the side of the filing cabinet and keeps them nicely out of the way under the desk.

Next up - a charging station for my camera batteries. Initially I thought to run an extension plug up to the lower shelf but that would look messy so I drilled a hole in the back of the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet, took apart the plug on the extension lead (I found that not all have plugs that can be opened), pulled the cable through and reattached the plug behind the cabinet. Then to stop my chargers falling over or moving about I used sticky-back velcro to attach them to the floor of the drawer.

Now all the cable mess is hidden away while my batteries are readily accessible. So far, it hasn't gotten hot in there at all which was a concern. Simple though it is, I'm rather chuffed with it. For the time being I've stuck one of my DeWalt chargers in as well.

Behind the filing cabinet is this somewhat crudely designed box thing I made a while back which houses and hides the mess of cables. It's dual purpose as on top sits my lamp, Google nest mini and wireless access point which the ethernet cable now goes into. Another ethernet goes from it to my iMac and we now have wifi on this side of the house too so there's probably no need to run any ethernet cables upstairs.

The usual option to house cables is an under-desk cable tray but I thought my box was the more elegant option. The cables running to the left can't be seen from above but I might get some cable clips (not the nail kind) to clip them to the desk.

Now, apparently one's elbows, or chair arms if you have them, should be pretty much level with the your desk and then your eyes should be level with the top of your screen. My iMac achieves this without a desk stand.

However, because in a video edit I spend a lot of time staring at the bottom of the screen I decided to make a desk stand to elevate it slightly. This then doubles up as good place to store/hide paper, the plugged in hard drives and charging cables.

I think that's pretty much it for the desk area. Nothing too fancy but hopefully it's given you some ideas for your own workspace. The goal was to make it aesthetically pleasing so I'd want to work in it and the functionality to make me more productive. Not sure if the latter will happen but I do like working in here.

👋

For my anecdotes this week - Abi and I were lying in bed listening to the tune playing out over the baby monitor and in unison starting singing along - but we were singing different songs. Me Baa Baa Black Sheep, and her, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. THEY'RE THE SAAAME TUNE! It's also the Alphabet Song. Mind blown 🤯.

And just so you don't get the impression I spend my 100% of my time DIY-ing, philosophising and basically ignoring my family, here's a pic from a day out this week to Cliveden House. I can recommend the Bugaboo Chameleon for new parents who want to go off road, though you're probably not supposed to take it, nor your child, up cliffs....

Hit "reply" if you've got any comments on this week's newsletter – otherwise I'll see you next time. Have an epic week :)

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