A Cheesemaker's tale, room preparation- Part 3 Print

The room itself has taken me a year to complete but that is mainly because I live on an island with almost full employment and busy builders.

Of course, we’d all love to have a lot of room but most of us have to adapt what we already have. My space is a garage with an up and over door and a side door. The roof space was open and pitched. The size is approx. 16x14 FEET not metres!

Builders weren’t really interested or were too expensive for my budget. The Knight on a white horse came in the form of Darren, a friend, who did it in his spare time. He’s not a builder but has rebuilt two houses and is really good at thinking how to do the complicated stuff. Like boxing in the garage door on the inside but ensuring that the garage still looked unchanged from the outside. This was required in the change of use planning permission. Like building a drain in the floor and joining it cleverly to another already there…
You can get firms to prefabricate a room inside another. If you live on a farm with a huge barn this may be an option for you but for me, panels would have trimmed off more valuable space and would have been too pricey.

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So, we began by putting plasterboard on the existing walls and making a ceiling (think of stuff falling in milk etc), and removing the garage door mechanisms and creating another wall there. The electricity meters had to be boxed in and any holes through which vermin can pass, blocked.

I painted the ceilings and walls with a paint called Rubbol, Magura. It’s washable, no odour and hygienic. It does, however look a bit thin despite three coats. I’m told in the damp atmosphere of a cheese room nothing stays good for long so it can all wait for the annual perk up.

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The floor is my pride and joy. Laid by another Darren (a lucky name for me!) and is non-slip and comes a few inches up the walls. Apparently it is chemical resistant although it already has rust marks from my draining table. Don’t underestimate the amount of water sloshing about…. The drain is quite small. Could have done with a slightly bigger one actually but I’m still happy with it. Once the floor and drain were in, I felt I was, at last, getting somewhere. I also could have done with a flat floor but there you go! The drain needs a slotted cover to catch curds and needs to be removable for cleaning. Some cheese makers have gutters in the floor which work well.

The light is a strip light with shatterproof cover. One wall has most of the electricity for the fridges/scales/essential radio! Also on the wall there is a flyzapper and air-con unit. The other wall is taken up with double sink and drainer (get as big as you can fit in then the sink can double as a sterilising tank. Mine can’t, it’s too small!), dishwasher (not essential but jolly nice. Mine was free from the recycling dump),  hand wash basin, paper towel holder and soap dispenser. The other wall is where the big vat sits so will have another designated socket (reasons why another time) and will soon have high shelving for all the stuff that takes up my spare room.

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Next time; equipment and lack of it!

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A Cheesemaker's tale, room preparation- Part 3
Tuesday, 27 January 2009
The room itself has taken me a year to complete but that is mainly because I live on an island with almost full employment and busy builders. Of...

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