Garage Sale

Not so much a "sale", to be fair, more a giveaway.

Looking more like a Second World War Nissen hut, our "garage" has blighted the bottom of our garden since before it was our garden. Since the very first day we came to view, and sat at the picnic table enjoying a cup of tea with the previous owners.

I can't remember if we decided then and there it had to go, but if not it wasn't long after. Barely wide enough to accommodate the smallest car (it used to house an MGC GT) and accessible only down a lane that is itself barely wide enough for a car to pass (our neighbour used to drive a Reliant Robin, which was OK, but anything larger? Dicey.) it was a garage in name only as far as we were concerned.

Various options were discussed and discarded over the years. Its cement asbestos construction allegedly meant that extreme care had to be taken in any demolition. Panels were not to be broken, and afterward had supposedly to be wrapped in heavy-duty polythene sheet and taken to the councip tip, which required 24-hours notice. Although not mandatory, it was also recommended to wear protective clothing - a mask at least and preferably a disposable cover-all.

Imagine my surprise then, when our two-man demolition crew arrived in shorts/jeans and t-shirts and proceeded to take the erection apart piece by piece, apparently unconcerned as they broke panels in half and barrowed them out to the road (the lane having proven to be too narrow for their Transit tipper).

I had intended to take "progress" shots on-site, but having witnessed their method from the study window I decided it would be more prudent to remain out of range of the dustclouds surrounding them. Progress, unhampered by protective suits, masks, or the desire not to disturb the integrity of the panels, was impressively rapid. The crew arrived at 9am and within an hour had removed the asbestos sheet, membrane and wooden boards comprising the roof structure, completely exposing the trusses.

Half an hour later the entire roof had disappeared.

After a further half-hour the lane-side wall and door end were down, and the garden side wall can be seen here leaning drunkenly inwards. By noon, the final wall - the gable end nearest the house - had fallen and the garage was, effectively, no more. The men had been on-site less than three hours.

After a quick tea break and the first trip to the tip to dispose of all the timber, they returned to bag up the cement panels and sweep up.

Taken from the same position as the first photo above, this is how the garden looks now. A little less like a 1950's throwback and a little more like the 21st century suburban haven we want it to be. Admittedly the flowering currant stuck apparently haphazardly in the middle of the plot gives it a slightly bizarre aspect, but the plan is to take back-up cuttings from this before trying to transplant the mature tree to a more sensible location.

We have been left with one final interesting task. The disposal of the garage floor.

Not, as for modern constructs, a concrete float, but instead what appears to be a suspended wood floor made up of various gash pieces of timber, off-cuts of floorboard and whatnot, all resting on a low course of bricks. Some of this flooring timber can, I hope, be rescued and used to repair some of the more chewed-up boards inside the house (although they will need sanding and treating). The rest will have to be burned. Probably the first use of the new space, once we've purchased a traditional garden incinerator.