Busy July weekend

Another busy weekend with an army of workers on the Saturday, big boys and little boys all joined in getting two upstairs rooms ready for plastering, Dael, Liam and Kalam worked in the master bedroom completing the demolition and preparation, out came the fire ready for the fireplace to be boxed in, lots of the old plaster was removed in readiness for some dot and dab work over the fireplace and room corners.
Her Ladyship worked on the ceiling project by removing the old paper covering ready for the final steam stripping.  
In the second bedroom, the previously uncovered fireplace was also prepared for boxing in, a wooden support frame was built by Liam and Kalam in readiness for the plasterboard, the ceiling was stripped of the paper covering and is now ready for the plasterer.
A solitary new electrical socket was added with several more to follow....this is harder than I initially thought cutting out into stone, but it will be done.

For the first weekend in two months the sun decided to make an appearance, on the Saturday it was very nice to be able to have a bite to eat sat outdoors in the sunshine, we even managed to deploy the sun awning at the rear of the house, hope we get more sunny days.......

Another fireplace uncovered

On Saturday I started to cut out some cable runs for wall lights in the living room, I tried the new SDS channelling chisel and can only say this is one of the best and useful tools I`ve come across in years, cuts through the plaster and leaves a perfect cable guide instantly, could possibly do all four runs in a matter of minutes, "hot knife through butter" springs to mind. Impressed! 

Whilst I was waiting for the dust to disperse I thought I would take a look at what was hiding behind the living room boxed in fireplace, crow bar at the ready and the front was off in no time revealing a fully functioning fireplace. My first thoughts are this is a really beautiful fireplace and perhaps could be kept, cleaned up and utilised, the tiled surround is obviously not Victorian so a little digging in the right place(Internet) might be able to date it. So, there I was getting exited thinking I might have found something useful here and in walked her Ladyship, Dael, Liam and Adon, and without a second glance out came the "you can get that ugly thing out" followed with joint agreement from her entourage! I was speechless, I thought I could save a lot of heavy work and a few quid here by keeping it, but alas, looks like it will be going in the skip with the many other things I had thought could be salvaged..........   

The West Wing

Well, things are moving on now as work spreads further throughout the house, her Ladyship would appear to be in the mood for stripping! one of the rear bedrooms has been stripped bare ready for re-plastering and she has swiftly moved on into the West Wing bedroom and stripped again!!
Also in this bedroom is a beautiful ornate original fireplace, as nice as it is, the fireplace and surround will have to be removed for the room to be updated. we found the marble surround quite easy to remove once we had worked out it was made up in sections and bonded together, we have plans to possibly re-locate this piece to the living room.

Work has started on the fire hearth and proved quite a battle to remove, the Victorians certainly knew how to secure things into brickwork, I`m talking about metal hooks and plates into brickwork that need serious powertools and heavy duty wrecking bars to release, you also need some good strong help for this task! 

couldn`t do it withou you

July update

The refurbishment is now well underway with several activities being carried out simultaneously, downstairs, the kitchen diner is almost completely stripped out and ready for re-plastering, we have yet to decide upon the final location for the new cable runs and additional electrical sockets, also a gas feed has to be installed for the cooker before we can get the floor sorted out.

I think that we can say "Fortunately at this stage" the recent deluge has found it`s way into the building, from what I can see so far the rain water appears to be from an overflowing gutter which is finding it`s way down the exterior wall and then probably entering the building via the stone lintel above the window, when the rain subsides I will make this a priority for correction, there are other old wooden gutters which require attention as these can also be seen to either be leaking or blocked, anyone got a long ladder and not afraid to climb it?

The living room walls have been stripped of all the old wood chip, not an easy task for her ladyship but she has persevered and patiently completed the task admirably, having the correct stripping tools, steamers and a suitable portable scaffolding unit have been essential for this work. Again cable runs need deciding upon for the required wall lights and additional electrical sockets in this room, I have been advised that the best course of action might be to run the cable down the walls and under the floorboards, not decided yet!
The high ceilings are papered over and require preparation, we can either strip the paper (hard work?)or board over, again another dilemma! A good few weekends are probably required before we can get the plasterer in.
One unknown aspect of the living room is the fireplace, it is currently boxed in and has yet to be revealed, hopefully there will be a fully functioning fire place behind that can be restored and utilised, During June we visited the excellent Hearth and Fire exhibition Harrogate aided by the trusty pack mules we came away with loads of relevant information and new ideas for consideration, high on the list at this time is a contemporary log burner, if we find an existing fireplace to be missing.

Out with the fireplace

Once we had removed the internal wall and stacked the bricks in the garden hopefully to be re-used on another project it was time to turn our attention to removing the old fireplace and opening up the chimney breast to accomodate the cooker, the series of photographs on the right show the enormity of the task.
Originally there would have been a cast iron range in this area but that appears to have been long gone and replaced with a much smaller conventional fireplace which according to dates and initials in the area was in 1949. Anyway, out with the big hammer and the lads set to in taking the space back to the original Victorian opening, it was at this time whilst I was away on business that my ever so sensible wife decided it would be a good idea to get in the structural engineer to make sure what I was doing was correct and safe, suffice to say, £150 lighter and a whole lot of extra work to what I had planned was needed!!! this entailed building two sides of bricks to hold the 6"x 6" steel beam required to support the internal chimney structure, just as a precaution in case something moved and the whole lot came crashing down, with probably half the house with it!!! as I said, just a precaution!!   

Old Gate Restoration

We had a pair of  old gates which had languished at the side of the house for goodness knows how long, probably removed from the driveway when the house became offices during the 1990`s. At first inspection we found the gates to be partly rotted where they had been stood on solid ground for years, first thoughts were to dispose of the gates and buy new, but against the advice of my sons who most definitley wanted me to throw them in the skip and buy  new, consideration had to be given to restoring them. The romantic in me decided to restore and reposition at the end of the driveway to afford privacy and security to the rear of the building as originally intended.
After stripping the rotten panels we were surprised and encouraged to find we had a substantial hardwood frame, with some remedial work this would give us a good start, with a replacement support strut and a little care and attention we thought we could restore the old gate to its former glory so project gate restoration began.

 All the metal fittings were carefully removed and shot blasted back to bare metal ready for re-painting in gloss black, new tongue and groove panelling was purchased to make good the gate ready for priming and gloss painting in a heritage green colour which would match the impressive front door.

The end result turned out quite well I think!

Making a Start

The first notable feature of our house project is what appears to be a Victorian trait, the distinct lack of natural light, this will need some serious attention as one of the prime objectives is to create a light and open feel to the building, particularly to the ground floor rooms.
On this level there are three rooms, originally the kitchen, scullery and dining room, all have walls and doors keeping each room separate and consequently quite dark rooms depending on the time of day and the position of the sun(when it decides to make an appearance!).
So, the plan is to open up the whole ground floor which will mean taking out completely, a non load bearing wall separating the kitchen and scullery and opening up the solid wall separating the scullery and dining room. This will allow natural light at both ends of the building and from a largish side window.

At the rear there is a two pane patio door which ideally will require opening up almost the full width of the room as the rear of the house is south facing and will allow maximum light into what will be the kitchen diner, the original dining room will become the living room and at this end there is a very large bay window which allows an abundance of light into the room. Onwards............the photographs on the left show the work carried out so far..........