In an experiment which only you guys can be the judge of, I thought I would only update the thread when I had made substantial progress. This because I have typically only been working on the house at the weekends, so progress has been slow. Well, I think I've got enough to post now (about 100 photos!!). Let's start with the first 30 or so.
Here's where we left things. I was working in the bathroom:
You've seen that. So, the new stuff:
I then insulated that for sound (as I do all around a bathroom No-one wants to here what goes on in a bathroom.....).
Then I thought I might stick a little low level wall out into the room in the middle of nowhere, just for fun:
You'll also note some framing above the slope. All will become clear in due course.
It was becoming really really difficult to work, because the bathroom is too small and awkward, and the room next door, the 3rd bedroom, had 2 parallel walls 3 feet apart, with doors openings at opposite ends, and packed solid with bits of wood, plasterboard and so on. It's worth bearing the following in mind. The dashed line running top to bottom to the left of the bathroom wall by the shower is the line of a tie-beam, but also an original cottage wall. This shows the 3 foot wide corridor quite wall, if you imagine that dashed line as a wall. Anyway, it was in the way, and it needed to go.
Here's a view along the length of that "corridor". this is the "before" shot:
You've got to start somewhere (well, after you've cleared a bit of space):
After the first swing of the sledge hammer it was clear that the bedroom side of the wall was cement rendered in absolutely rock hard inch thick foulness. Behind it though, was a 300 year old wall, painted with the original limewash. It was obvious that the original wall had been plastered on both sides of the same lath, so was in effect only an inch thick:
I paused for a long time, sorry to be taking down such history. I've beaten myself up over this wall for the last couple of years. Anyway, here's the original:
The near side is modern, and the ochre-coloured stuff is what the original occupants of the room would have seen.
Demolition proceeded:
There was no sole plate. The bottom of the studs were nailed directly to the floorboards:
Lots to clear up:
All gone:
Now you can see in through the new doorway, and get the first glimpse of the enlarged bedroom:
And a view from the other end, showing the tie beam with a bit of modern softwood (painted black) planted on it's bottom edge with some lath & plaster above. Since doing this demolition we've decided on a change of plan with this beam, and that plaster will be coming off.....but that's for later. Here's the beam:
Right, now I'd got a place I could keep tools and materials, I could now get on with the bathroom.
Refer back to the plan:
The hatched area crossing the middle of the room is an area of lowered ceiling (only about 1780 high.......5-10"), between two tie beams. It used to have the chimney going through the middle of it, and is the reason for the slightly unorthodox layout of the bathroom. Clearly we couldn't have any sanitaryware underneath that lower area. You can't clean your teeth if your head is banging on the ceiling! Anyway, it was something of a mess, so time to do a little work on it:
If you look very carefully in that last image you can see a piece of blacksmithing, which was nailed to the tie beam and bracketed over the wall plate on the outside. It was this at the end of each tie beam which had held the house square for 300 years. Anyway, it was about the get hidden again. First, though, a series of ad hoc battens, packing and fixings where I could, pulling everything tight up to the tie beam, and bridging the hole left by the chimney (demolished probably 3 years ago:
The ceiling all over the upstairs in the old part of the house is in a parlous state. I toyed with a number of different ways of dealing with it, but settle on this:
I'll probably be screwing a couple of hundred of these in place eventually, but there's only 40 or 50 in the bathroom, tying the weak laths nice and tightly back to the cured joists. It's a horrible job, drilling out for each one, as it sprays lime and grit all over you, and the room.
There was far, far worse to come though..........