Pics from Pops

Some pictures from when Dad came down to help.

A hole dug in the floor of the downstairs back room. The walls go down about 2 foot but there is no foundation and no damp proofing. The concrete floor in this area is just laid on to loosely packed soil. To make matters worse, the level of the ground on the outside is around 8 inches ABOVE the level of the floor inside. Some digging to be done!

Me trying to chip off concrete from the wall in the kitchen.

Another picture of the problem chimney. The dark area is the right-hand flue that comes from the oven below. 2 sides of this flue have collapsed so you can see in to it. This does not go through the roof, but has been remove at some stage. It terminates in the attic. The opening on the left is the main flue from the fireplace which looks like this from below...

Thanks for the pics, Dad.

Planning application is online.

Our planning application is finally online!!

http://planning.northwilts.gov.uk/DCOnline/AcolNetCGI.exe?ACTION=UNWRAP&RIPNAME=Root.PgeResultDetail&TheSystemkey=70496

Some builders have been in to look at the job for quotes. It is necessarily all a bit vague at the moment so we will only get ball-park figures. Basically, however much the construction costs will dictate how much of the internals I have to do myself. The more work done by contractors, the faster it will be completed.

The main construction is the 2-storey extension. However, we have decided that the old chimney stack has to be removed and replaced (after a doorway is put through the wall underneath). Also, there is a section of unsupported wall at the door between the two houses (downstairs old house to new house). These are the three main areas needing specialist attention.

Lets see what the quotes come back as.

Catch-up post

I have fallen a bit behind on the blog so this is a catch-up on where I have got to. My Dad came down for a few days to help out, but I haven't got the pictures yet so that will be in the next update. This blog will focus on the time from the end of March until Easter.

Last time I had finished off the downstairs (well, mostly).  I continued taking the plaster off the stairs and continued along the upstairs hall. Finally I removed the roof on the upstairs landing.

In the next picture you can see the outside wall of the bedroom. The stairs here will eventually be removed so this wall will have to come out. On inspection, it was not a stud wall, but instead was made of vertical floorboards.

You can see in the picture the vertical joins between the boards. from the inside of the room, a horizontal board half way holds the whole lot together.

The whole lot was very securely nailed together will flooring nails. The wall had been put in before the roof, so the whole lot was locked together. However, after a lot of persuasion, the wall came out leaving a big open space.

Taking the wall out upstairs also removed the downstairs wall in the hall. The cupboard under the stairs was removed also.

Taking out this wall left the problem of the old electric meter. It was secured to the wall but the wall is no more. Although all the power has been off for years, there is still a supply to the meter. In removing the various boxes I broke the main isolation switch - oops. It is now covered with tape until the meter is removed and the supply made safe.

The next picture was taken after my Dad came to help. This was the back bedroom (Olivia's room) and the plaster had to come off the wall that joined on the main house. This plaster was solid and very difficult to come off. You can see the concrete plaster along the side walls where the block-work has been added to the stone wall in order to make the building two-storey.

Looking in the other direction, the rest of the wall covering was removed as far as the concrete render. Notice the majestic looking Land Rover outside the window.

Moving to the front bedroom (Harry's room), the rest of the plaster and the roof was removed from the remaining walls, but the fireplace could not be tackled.

Pops did a good job removing the plaster from the last bit of hall - this is looking from Harry's door to Olivia's door.

I now need to take the pictures of the rest of the work that was done whilst Dad was down. We worked on the back living room and the kitchen. We also tidied up the workshop ready for making alterations needed to give access to the back house wall. Lots of repointing needed.