www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk

I came to this site to find advice and tips on rennovating properties as our place is a 'shed' (seriously, it was made from an old barn as far as we can tell after having removed a few old plasterboard panels and seen the inside!) and in desperate need of many, many DIY projects to make habitable.

One of the projects was to rebuild the fireplace - the original open hearth wasn't the most ideal (as you can see) and we were pleasantly surprised at the extent the fireplace opened out, allowing us to make a decent hearth to house a woodstove which is now our primary heating - the wood coming from the forests outside our place and essentially being 'free' (ok, a £50 licence to gather which gives us enough scope/time to get 3 years worth..... as good as 'free' as you can get ). Since our place is TINY (11m x 5m full extent ) the stove does ALL the heating - at least it does NOW after all the rest of the rebuilding work approaches completion and the insulation is finally fitted.

Anyway, with various hints and tips picked up along the way I thought I'd let other members see what has become of some of the areas I'm attending to. Comments and criticisms are, as always, welcome as I'm the first to acknowledge my amateur status when it comes to all-things DIY.

here's the fireplace project:

Nothing to criticise their K_E...Looks very nice mate

I had to improvise at the edges (the small squares) using offcuts as I'm such a skinflint I wouldn't pay for an additional box of tiles to do full sizes narrow bits!

I quite like the way that looks, it certainly doesn't do it any disfavours in my eyes.

Picture hooks aren't that expensive though are they? (Last photo) Just a nail in the wall would probably do.

Look great ke and I may have to nick some ideas there for ours!

I cant criticise as I don't know what to pick on nice work KE

We don't have many too inspiring ideas between us (me and Mrs) so we usually end up doing what we think fits the situation, the budget and/or the availability of 'bits' the mantle came first! The tiles were end-of-range sale items and so on.

The budget ran out before we got around to picture hooks - still saving for them

Looks nice mate

I bet you were glad to get it up and running!

How does the forestry thing work? Is it purely for firewood or can you take any bit of timber you fancy?

We live in a forrestry area (on the banks of Loch Awe) and the forrestry allocate areas they've already harvested to anyone interested in collecting the 'off cuts' - these range from branches to log off cuts some 1 to 4 metres in length it varies enormously between sites.
The £50 fee (for paperwork really) gives you 3 months to collect as much as you can from your allocated area - our last allocated area got us something like this (picture was taken only half way through our colletion period, the finished pile is MUCH bigger!). The site are usually left for a year or two before they are available so the wood is well seasoned when you collect it.

We reckon we've got 3 years worth based on last years consumption (and we've increased the house insulation considerably since then too). Living in the back end of beyond does have its advantages!