Cor blimey! What a week and still not finished yet
What I thought was going to be a three day installation (including the 190 mile round trip everyday) is turning into an eight day installation
Laughing is better than crying
Here were the negatives;
Firstly, I assumed (they say one should never assume
) the joists were independently tied into the wall, but when the joists were exposed, I couldn't have been more wrong. The central and end joists were tied into the wall and the remainder of joists were tied into trimmer joists which were tied into the central and end joists. The load bearing wall was (or is) 120mm in from the wall's surface (which incidentally is 25mm out of plumb over 1.8M). The wall has been dry lined with rigid insulation (other side of wall is carport), 12mm plasterboard and 12mm ply. There were also 7 cables running through the proposed stair well. This was all a major problem for me. It meant lifting up the whole floor, removing the trimmer joists (would have done partly anyway), fitting new double trimmers and re routing all the cables. We then started to lift the flooring - what a swine! This flooring wasn't only glued in the joints, but also glued onto the joists
The temperature up on the mezz was above 30 and as you can imagine, the positions we had to get into in order to lift the flooring was painful. It took us just over a day to lift this floor and we must have lost a few pounds due to the constant sweating - 'orrible!
Not to mention all the scratches and bruises - lots and lots of blasphemy indeed Sir!
To date:
By the end of day 2, we had temporarily supported the floor and cut open the stair well. By the end of day 3, the stair well was formed with new double trimmers installed and the stair was in although not fully secured. I had to make the stair well long enough to get the stair up into its resting place. It was too tight over the mezz and probably too heavy to get up there anyway.
By the end of today (day 5 and by myself since yesterday), the stair was firmly fitted (solid as a rock) and the new floor was also fitted.
Piccy time
Monday morning... Stopped in Salisbury so my mate Malcolm could buy his lunch, giving me the opportunity to take some piccies of the bus fully loaded - bursting at the seems
Took the grand children here a few weeks ago - ee ee ee oo oo oo ah ah ah
Then arrived on site around 11am... Here's Malc looking content - little did we know at this point.
Got the stair round the side of the barn and now in the living room. You can see the study door opposite with the mezz above.
Here's the mezz.
And then today's pictures. I didn't take any during the week due to the work load and not much time.
And looking out...
I shall report back when it's finished next week.
Cheers,
In my previous life, I was a tree.