Demolition Day

You know how people always tell you that people who don't make a mess, don't make anything? and that you cant make an omelet without breaking eggs etc??? Well:


We now have a fireplace in progress

And a ceiling in progress

And a doorway in progress

And ,yes, that's right - a wall in progress!!!

Happy days LOL

We can re-build it!!!

Continuing from my previous post, we get to Friday and the repair work starts. You can see the leaning sleeper wall on the left, so our first task was to re-build it to make it straight. The sleeper wall is the first layer of the flooring sandwich and goes from the foundations of the house up to the bottom of the wooden joists.

Then we built a new lattice of joists for the floorboards to be attached to. The joists are treated for woodworm and rest on top of the sleeper walls.

Finally, we nailed and screwed MDF sheets of wood 3/4" thick on top of the joists to make the finished floor. That kept us busy until Saturday evening.

On Tuesday we start on the chimney in the lounge.. We plan to open it up and put a wood burning stove in to use up all our offcuts of wood. Hopefully I can get some knitting done soon too!!!!

Floor-less-ness

We have finally had to tackle the floor problem in our lounge. The plasterers are booked for the end of the month to re-do the ceiling and walls, so the floor has to be done first. We started on Wednesday.

The sleeper wall which the joist rest on slid sideways in the Summer and we have now got to re-build the wall, replace the joist (3) and put down new floorboards in our lounge - in the coldest week of the winter!!!

The first photo shows DH getting started and replacing the wiring etc for the electric sockets. DH is not exactly thrilled to be acting like a mole in freezing conditions!!! We are lucky to have a joinery shop and the skills needed, but its still hard work. We have a 3-4 foot cavity under the floor, that's why DH looks like a midget LOL

This is the slab of concrete used to cover the original fireplace - it all fell apart when we removed the floorboards, so we have some bricking etc to do before going any further. We are also putting in a radiator and rewiring everything down here. I think the original work done in the 70's was done by Bodgit & Messy. The house was built in 1939 but was 'improved' in the 70's

Me acting as ballast for the joists while DH gets the remaining floor-boards up. I am wearing my coat because we found some dodgy gas pipes and have had to turn the gas off at the mains whilst it gets checked out so the heating is off - the fun never ends!!!

More towards the weekend : )