Patio Progress - Under Patio Storage

So on the post I put on Wednesday night I mentioned that I was installing some storage under the patio that I'm building. 

The idea behind this was that the patio was going to be raised no matter what (the garden is on a north facing slope) so it's a good way to add storage space without another structure in the garden.

By adding the ribs to the wall it adds a lot of strength anyway and I wanted a flight of steps down the middle so it wasn't much more work to increase the foundation size to allow for my under patio storage idea. 

It has created me some work though. 

The tops of these storage areas are going to be reinforced concrete, I can only work on the one at the moment as I have to leave the blockwork for the other down to give e access to the garden at the moment.

Last Saturday I managed to put up the form work (shuttering) for the slab on the right hand storage bay. It's only about 6ft wide by 3ft deep but it should still provide a useful area (I'm thinking kids toys at the moment).

I cheated a bit with the shuttering and used blocks to support it, with timber supports just under the OSB sheeting that I could knock out when the concrete has gone off (this is very important as they're is a lot of weight in concrete). I also used sash clamps to fix it to the block work as if I had screwed it to the blocks the chances are it would have pulled that single block off the wall. I did wrap my clamps in bags to save concrete getting on them (I'm sure that there was a god of carpentry angry at me somewhere!). 

When we started to pour the concrete some friends turned up - just at the right time (for us anyway) so it helped to get the concrete into the form work. We managed to get the tractor and mixer right up to where we were working as well, so with the addition of a little bit of tin sheeting it meant that we didn't have to use a wheel barrow! 

Dad forgot about a trench we'd dug earlier in the year. 

Concrete poured

Looking good, I roughed up the surface to provide a key to the slabs that will be laid on top

Form work removed, self supporting concrete roof/shelf.

Next job is to start shuttering the steps up to the patio and then to fill in the top (our pipework from last November is still exposed at the moment) with stone and slab it. 

A lot of work for my silly ideas - but it'll be worth it in the end! What do you think?