Holy cow - man cave may happen!

Well, the man cave, or garage, or perhaps "Binfield Engineering Centre" may actually come to pass, at last.

First off the boiler needs moving in to the utility room next to the garage, and that means also moving the sink, tiling the floor, new cabinet and cupboards. But that is actually starting with the boiler move on Wednesday. It really is happening!

The council confirmed, finally, that there was no requirement for planning permission as this sort of conversion is "permitted works". They have a pre-planning enquiry form on the web site which was something like £45, and they check if the work needs permission or not. I was able to upload photos and a diagram - the site actually worked quite well. Ironically, I did not have to move from my desk to sort a plan and photo as I just grabbed google earth / street view shots. That is the final hurdle before we actually get started - so the garage is finally going to happen.

Once the utility room is done, it looks like work can start on the garage in two weeks time. Raising/levelling the floor, blocking one tiny window, building wall with door way and windows where garage door was, and so on.

Then I have to really consider the internal fittings, work-top, "bar", shelving, cupboards, sofa, TV, loads of things to think of.

I'll have to start taking some proper pictures of all of this as work progresses.

Update: We have some MDF shelves we need removing ready to re-do the walls... Sandra wants them intact, else this would have been easy! They were not actually screwed to the wall, so should be simple, or so we thought.

• Looked like jammed in on right/left to plaster board, so I managed to remove the plaster board and wood, and still did not move. I could get it to move away from the wall a bit on the left.
  
• James tried - he could move it a bit, but managed to put feet through the plasterboard in the process! Good job we are re-doing the dry lining.
  
• James then tried using a tow rope, no joy.
  
• James then tried three claw hammers (why do we have three claw hammers?) and was wedging them in at the top and moving them right a bit at a time - no joy.
  
• James then tried a car jack, and managed to punch a hole in the plaster instead of moving the shelves.
  
• James tried again, car jacking against the brick wall behind, and managed to twist the whole shelving unit but no more.
  
• James finally car jacked against the brick wall on the top right, and popped it out - it was simply wedged top to bottom, floor to lintel on the right.
  

Finally...