With the second half of the timber order finally in there's some lost time to make up. To begin with, as an aside for anyone with a technical interest in these things, we're going for a belt and braces approach with the ground level woodwork. It's lovely C24 regularised kiln dried pressure treated stuff and …
Month: August 2018
Best Made Plans
The big plan (for the things currently being juggled around) was to rip out the floors and wall in the utility so that new ones could be put in place in time for the electrician to visit. This because wires would need to be routed underneath the floors and through the wall. What went wrong …
Scorched Earth Policy
The dining room is a near identical construction to the Hall. The floor boards in here though are a little sounder and don't suffer from being made out of annoying steel banded strips of wood. The more conventional tongue and groove system is much more forgiving to pry up. There was even one board which …
Brother let me be your servant
Not quite what Jacques said but given the opportunity to wield some power tools and large hammers with few or no consequences, who wouldn't want to pop down to Wiltshire for some fun? The task was simple: dismantle the floor. To achieve this (and as we weren't precious about saving the wood anymore), we bought …
A floor in the plan
It's not just the tiled floors in the kitchen and utility which need overhauling, the suspended timbers on the ground floor all look the worse for rot too. That some of the floorboards are rotten is a bad sign: if the damp's penetrated that high it suggests that the joists are beyond saving for sure. …
Fire Starter
In our quest to undo the 70s we've decided to remove the faux chateau fireplace settings. These are hideously pointed stone extrusions jutting out from the walls, hiding whatever was originally there. In the dining room we had a little hint of what might have been. Poking out from within the left stone column was …
Going Underground
The removal of the front flowerbed is just part of a wider plan to lower the ground level around the house. Over the years the surrounding area has gradually risen. Patios, concrete and such like all piled atop one another. The result is an outside ground level higher than the indoor floor level. On modern …
Oh Sister
Hannah, on a trip back to the UK, made her inaugural visit to the Old School House. Billed as a sightseeing trip to the Cotswolds and catch-up with her sister, it didn't take too long for the house to get its claws into her. It was a flapping piece of wallpaper what did it. Hanging, …
Chez Pouget 