Ali and Dave's DIY Adventure

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!

posted by Ali & Dave @ 8:55 pm