Mezzanine Madness & Cellar Shenanigans
Mezzanine Madness & Cellar Shenanigans
I’ve not really planned this very well. I’ve got a week off work and was hoping to get Donald on-board to help me out but I’ve left it too late to book him in and as a result he’s off on another roofing job somewhere near Pen-Y-Gent, so as I arrive for day one ready to do what I can, it’s a bit of a surprise to see him and two others turning up.
They have been rained off the job so as I wasn’t answering my phone, they were just going to come and do a bit of plastering, hearing this though, I have other ideas!
The mezzanine floor is on my wish-list and with three builders at my disposal, a week off work and a lot of work which can be done indoors to get stuck into, we hatch a bit of a plan.
Tom and I spend the morning cutting out the floorboards and joists where the raised floor and cellar will be, as Donald and Pete nip out for materials and tools ready to put the wall-plate up when they return. Around lunchtime, Tom is despatched to collect a prefabricated set of stairs from a supplier in Lancaster and, as they can’t deliver for nearly a week, we could potentially have them up by tomorrow. As it turns out framing the mezzanine is surprisingly fast and by the time Tom gets back we’re ready to cut them to size, adding a 90 degree turn at the top.
The next morning a delivery of T&G boards, breeze blocks, sand and cement arrive to build the walls to the cellar and raised floor but the breeze blocks are the wrong size and type, so we spend the morning digging out the footings for the concrete foundations, as Donald gets onto the supplier.
By afternoon, Tom and Pete have put in a sluice ramp to get the concrete mix in the right places as Pete gets the depth and levels right.
Donald and I are cutting, glueing and screwing the T&G panels into position on the mezzanine and it looks and feels like a solid floor. I have floors at home which don’t feel half this solid and the whole thing feels like it’s been here forever. If anything, what is does do is make me wander what’s wrong with my floors at home!
Towards the end of the day, the right blocks arrive and we get a bit of a conveyor belt going, moving them from pallets to Pete so he can stack them where he wants them.
With another day, more materials arrive this time 3×2 C24 which I’ll need to build the balustrade to the mezzanine floor as Pete gets busy with the blockwork.
The weather has picked up a little so Donald has left Pete with me to crack on with the blockwork while he and Tom head off to try to make up for lost time on their other job. It’s my turn to be the gopher so I’m keeping myself busy making sure Pete has whatever he needs and putting in the noggins for the bunk room framing.
With the week coming to an end, the blockwork is where it needs to be and the structure of the original floor feels all the stronger for it. The mezzanine framing is looking good and with another delivery, we have enough 3×2 timber to get the non-structural framing done for the bathroom and the 5x2s and more T&G panels for the raised floor. It’s getting to the point where I need to get using this stuff the moment it arrives as we’re running out of space!