Week 36-38 - New Residential Entrance

I've been waiting for Sophie's legs to grow an extra 2 meters, but no matter how hard I pull, its just not happening. Plus I'm getting a little tired of being constantly asked "why there is a random square half way up the wall", so its time to crack on with the new stairs up to the front door of the residential area. (Which FYI - is obviously what the 'random square' is!)

So this is what we started with - you can see the line of lead already in the render on the wall to seal the new stair roof into the building, but that is about it.
Not on the original plans, but since the floods last year with have decided to keep anything timber or porous well off the ground, so I am making the bottom 3 steps out of reclaimed stone from the building and then start the timber structure from there.

This is now my second go at stone walling and although my technique doesn't seem to of improved much, i was at least a little quicker.
Now I fully admit this has more of a ramshackle, found half way up the fells look about it than a freshly built, crisp stone wall. My only real response to this is that this is 100% the look i was going for - and you cant prove otherwise! (so there). I like to think it has the look the 'cool kids' refer to as vintage... and im nothing if not 'down with the kids'

Timber structure then does on top of the stone base and attaches to the wall at the top. Please note (or at least pretend to me you noted) the unsupported double cranked stringer on the side closer to us in the picture. This has some quite complex custom steel brackets uncased in the timber to give enough strength that we do not need any posts coming down to the ground underneath the stairs. It took a bit more work but it means we dont have any pillars blocking the front door.

Timber framework and outer skin goes up and then the roof (corrugated steel to match the rest of the road side) does on.

Another (and thankfully final) staircase made and glued up in the workshop.

Finally the outer skin is battened and bitumen painted. This will then be timber clad along with the front (blue section) at a later date.