Dojo Build - Into the New Year!

After a great holiday with my wife and girls it was back to working on the dojo. Needless to say I was really excited based on what Andy and I achieved in the few days leading up to Christmas.
The very first thing we did was take off the tilting garage door. I wanted to replace this with a wall and window to allow more light into the space.

Not long after we had removed the door, my friend Jules turned up with another person, Kate. They dedicated a day of their holiday helping out. Andy got them onto lining the internal wall with 9 mm plywood. The plywood I used here was non-structural and only had one 'good' side. This kept the cost down.

Jules and Kate on the job.

You can see in the picture that we had to build the internal wall out to go around one of the trusses, this will turn out to be quite a cool design feature later on. 

The external wall is built, cladding underway.

Andy spent most of this day building the external wall and putting on the cladding. I managed to find the exact same cladding that is on my house. It is a cement-based hardyboard with a 'rustic' finish. Basically it gives the appearance of wood grain. 

The window is in!

I sourced the window from a demolitions place. It is an aluminium sliding window with tinted glass. It is 2850 mm x 1200 mm. I am very happy with the size and the tinted glass helps reduce heat inside as the window is north-facing. You can see in the picture the smaller side door that will become the main entrance. 

We were lucky with our timing as no sooner had the window been installed than we experienced heavy rain for the next day! 

The rest of the time Andy was with me he taught me how to put in studs (vertical framing) and nogs (horizontal timber blocking between studs) and measure and cut plywood for the lining of the walls. 

This left me with enough knowledge to carry on by myself. 

So I carried on lining the walls. Needless to say this was a slower process by myself. 

During this time I got an electrician in to sort out my lighting. The original lighting was simply two standard light sockets in the shared space of the shed. They were powered by one switch. This was now a problem as I had put an internal wall between the two lights. Also one of the lights had been hanging on the truss Andy removed!  

Here is my solution...

New lights.

I bought three low profile LED batons. I had two placed in the dojo space. They were connected to the original switch. The third baton was put on the other side of the internal wall and connected to a different switch. I am very happy with the LEDs as they are very bright and energy efficient. 

Looking North.

 Jules came back again to help me with lining the truss above the internal wall and as you can see, the majority of the matted space is now complete. I have decided not to line the ceiling at this stage to keep costs down and it doesn't effect my ability to train. The genkan (reception area) will be stage two of the project when I can afford to do it. I have the paint for the external and internal walls and I have started the external painting at the time of writing this. 

Looking South

I plan on painting the internal walls with a bleached timber stain (like a white wash) so that the grain of the ply shows through. I will post more pictures once I have finished the matted area. The tatami are due to arrive in about 7 weeks. 

I am very happy with the outcome. But I wouldn't have got very far without Andy's expertise and Jules and Kate giving their time.

However, my biggest thanks must go to my wife, Ricci. The money for the build came from her father's inheritance and when we had people over she put on some splendid meals as well as keeping the children entertained!

Without her giving me the money and time, there was no way the build could have got off the ground. 

Dojo Build - Days Before Christmas.

Well, I have spent a good part of my summer holiday building a private dojo on my property. I am happy with the progress knowing that I am back to work this week.

In this blog I'm going to take you through the process from start to the current situation (or close too, I'm always out there painting or nailing). 

In the beginning...

The above photo is what I started with, this is approximately a 5 m x 7 m area of my shed. It has a concrete floor with a mechanic's pit covered by boards. As I am not a huge car enthusiast, I was happy to build over the pit and leave it there for resale in the future (in a good 17 years or so). I sealed the concrete to reduce moisture coming up. The pit was already painted on the inside. 

The first step was designing and building a sprung floor. I asked my wife's cousin to help with the dojo build as he was a professional builder. Needless to say, without Andy on board, I wouldn't have got nearly as far so quickly. 

I had some plans given to me from a training colleague at the Hamilton dojo but I modified them as I went based on cost and the space I was working with. 

Laying the framing for the sprung floor.

The floor is composed of 45 mm x 70 mm joists sitting on pads of high density EVA foam, 100 mm x 100 mm x 40 mm. The original plans had 45 mm x 45 mm joists but Andy was concerned with the wood warping and twisting so, taking his advice we went wider by 25 mm (1 inch). The pads are glued to the joists but not to the concrete. The floor wasn't perfectly level in places and you can see in the picture below we added expanding foam in places to make up for this. A solid timber frame sits around the outside to stabilise it. 

Putting on the plywood flooring.

Over the joists we laid 19 mm flooring plywood. These sheets fit with a tongue and groove system and are screwed down with 150 mm centres. Usually the screws would be 300 mm a part but we didn't glue the sheets to allow for the floor to be lifted if maintenance is required. This took over 700 screws to do! The end result is a solid floor that provides some 'give' with hard impact. I am very pleased with this result as the design is original and Andy had never built anything like it before. With judo tatami on top it will be great.

The internal wall goes up.

While I was busy screwing in 700 or more screws, Andy put up the framing for the internal wall. We left a space for a door in that wall to give access to the rest of the shed. You can see also at this stage that access to the shed is through a tilting garage door. That was destined to disappear!

Truss removed.

The next thing we did was to remove the middle truss of the training area. I wanted this done to increase head height and allow for weapon practice. Andy reinforced the remaining rafters and trusses with extra timber. By the way, the pink building timber is typical here in NZ. It is painted to show that it is chemically treated against insects and moisture. Pink signifies H1 treatment. Untreated timber is not coloured.

By this stage we had built a sprung floor, the internal wall framing and increased the head-height. This happened in about 2 and a half days just before Christmas. 

To be continued...