Time pressure on self-builds is a funny thing. It makes everyone mad and stressed. Most people try and make it go away by having a temporary house while they build the main one, to avoid paying rent and building at the same time. Often a caravan, or garage that's been converted, that kind of thing.
We'd had it in the back of our heads for a while, even tracked down a mining company that was selling off a bunch of temporary accommodation blocks a few months back, but we had trouble finding something with more than one window that was within a reasonable distance. Then we found this on GumTree:
It needed a fair bit of fixing up, but was very cheap, so we figured we didn't mind. Getting it to the site was a whole day, then it took us three weekends worth of work to get it completely weather proof. One day of silicone and caulking guns on the outer walls, about half a day for Kyle on the roof (we went over all the screws as the seals had perished, and up under the edge of the rim just in case).u
There were 3 big rectangular holes in the wall, one in each of the 3 rooms, that had had air conditioners in them. Kyle tidied them up a bit, then screwed a sheet of perspex over two of them. We sealed up the outside, then Kyle plastered up the edges and put frames around them to make them look like windows.
The third one, though, still had the metal frame that had held the air conditioner itself. We decided to leave that in, and make a little hidey hole for our cats with it. I cut away the vent screens with an angle grinder, and gave the whole thing a good clean. Kyle put perspex over each of the gaps and sealed it up with silicone.
I'm going to make a full height scratching post for our two cats to climb up to get to their sunroom. But first, we had to make the rest of the place liveable.
Pulling up the old vinyl flooring took a lot longer than I thought it would, and it was a hard job. The old vinyl was very brittle, so you couldn't just get a big patch then pull, it came off in tiny little pieces more often than not. Eventually my Dad had the bright idea of hooking Mum's hair dryer to a long extension cable plugged into their camper van, which softened the glue enough to help.
At this stage, the walls are sealed (inside and out), the old floor is out, we've bought new flooring, and will likely put it in sometime in the next week or two. We did spend the night in the end room one weekend, and it was bitterly cold, so we're exploring our options for adding to the ceiling insulation, and I'm going to make some thermal curtains for all the windows. We'll look into diesel heaters as well. Given this is a temporary home we don't want to spend too much time on it - we'll get it comfortable, but our focus is still on the main house.
We'd had it in the back of our heads for a while, even tracked down a mining company that was selling off a bunch of temporary accommodation blocks a few months back, but we had trouble finding something with more than one window that was within a reasonable distance. Then we found this on GumTree:
It needed a fair bit of fixing up, but was very cheap, so we figured we didn't mind. Getting it to the site was a whole day, then it took us three weekends worth of work to get it completely weather proof. One day of silicone and caulking guns on the outer walls, about half a day for Kyle on the roof (we went over all the screws as the seals had perished, and up under the edge of the rim just in case).u
There were 3 big rectangular holes in the wall, one in each of the 3 rooms, that had had air conditioners in them. Kyle tidied them up a bit, then screwed a sheet of perspex over two of them. We sealed up the outside, then Kyle plastered up the edges and put frames around them to make them look like windows.
The third one, though, still had the metal frame that had held the air conditioner itself. We decided to leave that in, and make a little hidey hole for our cats with it. I cut away the vent screens with an angle grinder, and gave the whole thing a good clean. Kyle put perspex over each of the gaps and sealed it up with silicone.
I'm going to make a full height scratching post for our two cats to climb up to get to their sunroom. But first, we had to make the rest of the place liveable.
Pulling up the old vinyl flooring took a lot longer than I thought it would, and it was a hard job. The old vinyl was very brittle, so you couldn't just get a big patch then pull, it came off in tiny little pieces more often than not. Eventually my Dad had the bright idea of hooking Mum's hair dryer to a long extension cable plugged into their camper van, which softened the glue enough to help.
At this stage, the walls are sealed (inside and out), the old floor is out, we've bought new flooring, and will likely put it in sometime in the next week or two. We did spend the night in the end room one weekend, and it was bitterly cold, so we're exploring our options for adding to the ceiling insulation, and I'm going to make some thermal curtains for all the windows. We'll look into diesel heaters as well. Given this is a temporary home we don't want to spend too much time on it - we'll get it comfortable, but our focus is still on the main house.
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