Destroying the Dining Room

It's been a hard couple of day! 

After months of doing jobs leading up to it and lots of planning, I've finally made the big push and started to knock through to the extension downstairs!

It's been messy!

It's been one of those jobs that I've been looking forward to and dreading in equal measures! I've been dreading the mess and disruption but can't wait to use the space!

I started on Monday morning, put plastic up each door way, climbed through the window and started causing havoc!

I ripped out all the woodwork, stripped the ceiling down then the plaster from where I'd be working. The joist run into the wall where I wanted the opening to I set about propping them with acroprops and a beam to spread the load.

I then started to knock a hole in the wall. Like upstairs these wall are rock solid. Both the bricks and the mortar are as hard as they come! I ended up drilling hundreds of holes to start with to make the opening so I could see what I was doing.

I was struggling a bit, as I was worried I wouldn't get it all done in a day and leave the house propped up over night. Then my friend Brian turned up unannounced, dressed for work and just started helping me. I was so happy, he's such a good friend! I don't think I could have lifted the beam in without help and he came at just the right time. A proper morale boost as well!

Within a few hours we had the beam in and the hole knocked through. It's made such a difference to the space!

Tuesday was a day that was just as dirty and messy.

I then tackled the dinning room, I need to get it ready to concrete the floor and plaster.

First job was to clear the plaster from the walls, seemed sensible to do this first and have a blank canvas to work from.

The next job was to remove the suspended timber floor. Lot of people have asked me why I'm doing this and I have a few answers.

The first being that I've blocked the vents when concreting the extension. This was always my intention as I wanted to get rid of the suspended floor for some time now.

The second begin that it gets rid of somewhere rodents can live, nothing is worse that hearing a mouse (or worse) running around under your feet.

Also the floor had no insulation in it so the cold air from outside would cool the room (more when it was vented better though).

but mainly because it was riddled with woodworm! Some of the boards fell apart. Luckily there seems to be none in the ceiling above, although I might treat it while I have the beams exposed!

The floor came out easily. the builders who built our place did such a good job, all the craftsmanship is spot on and how I'd want to find it!

Now the timber floor is out I can look at adding vents for the the air for the wood fired range we'll be installing, then plastic membrane and insulation before concreting tomorrow.

Loads of work still to do but ti feels like some big steps forward this week!