2 Become 1
To borrow a phrase from the Spice Girls...
We are no longer the owner of two flats but one house, hooray! It was another weekend of destruction activities all round. We did start with something vaguely constructive by practising plumbing skills and moving the radiator from the dividing wall that was about to be demolished. We thought we'd better keep it operational as it's our only source of heat downstairs. Having fathomed out the intricacies of re-pressuring the heating system (slightly wet kitchen during the process...), it was good to see that my brazed joints were water tight in the end. (Not to mention accidentally pressure tested to 3 Bar, where's an engineer when you need one?)
Taking down the stud wall between the two flats required our own tribute to Jack Nicholson in The Shining! The plan was to try and save the ceiling and as much of the original banisters as possible. Unfortunately it turned out there isn't much left of the banisters to save, but hopefully there will be some traces left upstairs that we can copy.
It's strange not to have to walk around the outside of the house to get downstairs now - we're looking forward to getting our hands on all of that space eventually. One added bonus of having a very large building site/hall is that I can park my bike in there! I'm sure that won't last once we get some nice wooden flooring down...
Sunday afternoon involved removing the last traces of a chimney breast that we'd discovered in the ceiling space in the kitchen. Progress in there will be slow now until the gas and water works are carried out on the meters. That will allow us to get rid of the stopcock and cooker connection located exactly where our sliding doors should be. We'll focus on the downstairs central heating and utility room area to keep us busy in the meanwhile!
Open and Shut Case
Another weekend of destruction, we got stuck into the downstairs hall - removing the old water tanks and a partition wall/cupboard arrangement. This will be the new location of our utility room at some point in the distant future! We had the builders round as well for our first major piece of remodelling. They were moving the door that leads into the kitchen for us. Now we can arrange our units in a very trendy galley style all down one edge of the room.
The builders were super efficient and knocked £100 off the price they had quoted if I did the plastering myself. Better dust of my 3 day course from a few years ago I think... Hence the plasterboard only finish in the picture, presented by my glamorous assistant. It also has a sketch of what could be a very nice glass roof on it, though we need to work out how much it will cost first!
We had to go for a slightly narrower door than had been there in the first place, but luckily we found an original door in the loft which we could use instead. The finished result has a better fit and finish than my BMW doors - definitely worth the cash (in hand)!
King of Destruction
It's our 2nd weekend in the house and we have reigned major destruction in what was formally the downstairs flat kitchen and bathroom, as you can see from our 'before' and 'after' pics. Nothing was safe from Dave in his old racing driver suit, mask and sledgehammer!
Pregnancy friendly tasks were even found for me in chipping off wall tiles and cleaning bricks - all strangely theraputic. We have discovered the kitchen roof is much higher than it appears - swinging a sledgehammer at it reveals new beams had been installed across the originals to flatten and lower the ceiling. We're taking it back to it's roots to get the height and slope back, and give Dave more things to destruct.
We've also been a major thoroughfare for builders; gas men; loft men; electricians etc as we get the major house works planned and quoted for. Much head scratching is going on to decide how to install as much glass and contemporary style into our new kitchen (currently the building site you see above) at a price we can afford.. watch this space..
