The Restoration - Week Three

Although we only had one bricklayer woking on the house for most of this week, there was still signifcant progress. The first two window arches were completed, the brickwork on the top of the North gable was repaired and the foundations for the kitchen wall were dug out - a leaking water stop valve was also replaced along the way!

Over the previous weekend, the first window arch had been covered in hessian sheeting to allow the lime mortar pointing to dry out slowly. On Monday this was removed to expose the completed arch which also sits below a higher, older window arch which was also restored to preserve the history of the house.

The first arch is restored, along with an older arch located higher on the wall

Next was the second window arch on the same South Gable, above which there was also a large section of brickwork to be rebuilt, repairing a crack which we found when the render was removed.

 

The second arch is in place and work has started on rebuilding the wall above



The highly skilled job of matching and tying in new brickwork to the exising bricks is almost complete above the new arch

 

The second arch is in place and the new brickwork is looking great. Just the lime mortar pointing to be done to finish it off.

As you may have seen in last weeks blog post, the kitchen wall on the south side was completely removed for rebuilding. Before starting to rebuild it, it was decided to investigate what kind of footings lay beneath the bottom course of bricks. This was a wise move as it soon became clear that the foundations on this section of wall were nothing more than some rubble stones - a clear explanation as to why this wall had been bulging!! In the process of digging out a trench for a new concrete foundation we also discovered that stop valve controlling the incoming cold water supply had a serious leak and was threatening to flood the newly dug trench for our foundation, so unfortunately work was held up until the plumber arrived to fit a new stop valve. The trench will now be allowed to dry out a bit and probably deepened before pouring the concrete foundation - hopefully in the next few days.

Having uncovered a very "dodgy" base below the old kitchen wall, a trench is dug to take the new concrete foundation. The large rock in the foreground was the only stone of any significant size -perhaps a remnant of an older stone foundation? Another unsolved mystery!

So that was week 3 - the weather forecast for the coming week is looking good so hopefully more progress can be made on rebuilding window arches and the kitchen wall. The first of the new windows should hopefully also be arriving sometime in the next couple of weeks. We really can't wait to see these going in, not only because they should look great but it will also be brighter inside the house when the temporary plastic and plywood can come down!

 

 

 





The Restoration - Week Two

The past week has seen some of the destruction continue but some reconstruction has also been taking place, in particular on two of the upstairs window openings. However, the week began with a successful attempt at removing some very hard cement render base coat from the brick wall around the patio door on the North gable. When removing the bulk of the render from the house during the winter I had given up on this section because I was in danger of doing too much damage to the bricks. This area around the patio door was earmarked for reconstruction, had the render removal proved impossible, so the fact that Gareth the bricklayer was able to remove the render and clean up this wall means a considerable saving on the budget - which will no doubt be spent elsewhere!


Gareth begins the tricky job of carefully removing some very hard and stubborn render from the old brickwork

After several hours of very patient chipping and brushing, Gareth has cleaned the bulk of the render residue off of the brickwork, meaning that this wall can remain in place, thereby avoiding a considerable anount of rebuilding work.

At the start of the week, work continued to remove what was left of the back wall of the kitchen. Thsi wall will be completely rebuilt, since the brickwork in this area was in a terrible state. The replacement window will be a bit shallower than the one which has been removed and so the wall will also be rebuilt to allow for this. An internal plywood screen has been built meaning that the worst of the dust and the weather stays out of the house. As well as this wall and window coming out, 3 more windows were removed from the south side of the house this week. This will allow the reconstruction of the brick arches and window jambs to begin in preparation for our new triple glazed timber windows which should start arriving within the next few weeks from Williams Homes of Bala.

 

Early in week two the South side of Old Lawns farmhouse was full of very large holes!

Removal of the kitchen wall continued this week and by Tuesday most of the brickwork to the left of this photo had gone.

However, it wasn't all about demolition as we also saw the reconstruction of the first two window opening begin. Having carefully measured the original openings before specifying the sizes for the new windows, Ben, the carpenter from Phillips & Curry constructed frames and arch formers to allow the brickwork to be rebuilt, the idea being that the new windows will slide seamlessly into the reconstructed openings - fingers and toes crossed all round!  :-)

Reconstruction begins on the first window using a frame matching the dimensions of the new windows (plus an allowance for around the edges) to guide the rebuilding of the brickwork

 

The first window opening is almost complete. Only a few bricks to go in below an older original arch which sits above the new one and after that, the re-pointing of the brickwork.

Restoring the brick arches above the windows has also involved the removal and treatment of the existing steel lintels - the new arches are purley decorative rather than load bearing. As well as the arches, the brickwork on the sides of many of the window waas in a mess, consisting of bits of tile packed out with lumps of cement mortar. |All this is being skillfully restored so that the restored brickwork will sit neatly against the new windows. In this picture of the second window opening undergoing restoration (below), you can see the lintel which has been replaced in the wall and the reconstructed brickwork to the left side of the window opening.

 

Reconstruction starts on the second of fifteen window openings

As well as reconstuction of windows, this week some more of the old stone west wall was revealed as the cement render was stripped off. Like last week, I was pleasantly surprised that, although this wall will no doubt need quite a lot of repointing and general repairs, the overall condition is pretty good, considering its been smothered in a suffocating coat of cement render for over 50 years. In common with the brick walls I stripped in the winter, it is very wet when the render is first removed but rapidly starts to dry out once its open to the air and breathing again.

Another large section of the West wall is now clear of render and looking in pretty good shape. 

The final job this week was not connected to the external restoration but nevertheless it revealed another little part of the history of OLF. With the help of the builders, the plumber removed the old oil fired Stanley range from the fireplace in the kitchen. Once out of the way I was able to start stripping off the dreadful 1960's tiles which covered the walls, revealing the old brickwork inside the fireplace. There are very clear signs of its previous life as an open fire at one time - lots of soot on the bricks, lots of very damaged brickwork - but its also clearly undergone a few reconstructions in its time. There is what looks like the bricked up opening of an old bread oven and the present outer skin of brick in the back of the fireplace seems to be a relatively recent addition as its only one brick deep and isn't tied into the wall behind. We will most likely just restore and limewash the bricks, then make this fireplace a feature in the kitchen. We have a new, very efficient oil boiler on the way which will be installed elsewhere in the kitchen and no immediate plans for the fireplace, other than allowing the very damp brickwork to dry out. A couple of centuries of cooking followed by a watertight coating of gypsum plaster and tiles have left it rather damp, but given a bit of time we expect it to dry nicely.

The old Stanley range has gone and its time to start stripping off those hideous tiles and gypsum plaster.



The brickwork in the old fireplace is revealed. You can just make out a small brick arch in the shadows just to the left of centre in the fireplace wall. Below this arch a square opening, possibly originally a bread oven, has been bricked up.

So, that was week two! We are looking forward to seeing some more rebuilding of brickwork and reconstruction of the window openings next week and hope you will come back for a look at our progress.








 

The Restoration -Week One

This week the team from Philips & Curry (www.phillipsandcurry.co.uk) arrived and the restoration work got underway. At this point there is a lot of "destruction" to be done before the reconstruction starts! First on the list was removing the window and wall from the south side of the kitchen.

First job was to start propping up the ceiling joists in the kitchen and building a temporary internal wall to try and keep as much rubble and dust out of the house!

So the window is out and the wall is coming down fast! 

"Strong Boys" propping up the south wall and some extra diagonal braces have also been installed to ensure the slightly bulging upstairs wall doesn't start to move when the kitchen wall comes out

After a day most of the kitchen wall is gone. This will be removed early next week and the brickwork will be rebuilt.

The big stone west wall was still covered in render because we were unsure how stable it would be. So it a nervous time when the render removal began. However this wall is so far in better shape than I personally had expected. Yes, there are a few holes and areas of lime mortar in very poor shape, but nothing so far which will not respond to a bit of expert restoration work.

The first few square feet of render comes off revealing a beautiful, very old but rather wet stone wall

Water running down the back of the render has dissolved the lime mortar in this area which will need some reconstructive surgery

After a couple of hours the top half of this wonderful, very old wall is revealed and is starting to dry out at last

 

The lower part of the west wall is open to the elements at last and although there is a big hole on the right side of this picture, just below the scaffold platform, most of it is in reasonable shape so far.

Next on the list this week has been starting to prepare the upper floor windows and brickwork for rebuilding later in the project. Two main areas have been started. There was a large crack in the top of the south gable which can be seen in earlier Blog posts and it was decided that the best course of action would be to remove the outer skin of bricks in this area and rebuild it.

The outer skin of bricks is removed and this area is ready for rebuilding. Thankfully all the timbers which have been exposed appear to be sound.

The brickwork below an old original arch has been removed on the south gable to allow access to the modern lintel and eventual reconstruction of a new arch above the new window which will be installed in a few weeks

So, that was week 1 - its been exciting (and a relief) to get the project underway. We have a long road ahead of us but we're looking forward to making more rapid progress in the coming weeks. The estimate is that the project will take 14 weeks and we are hoping that the weather will stay on our side as long as possible!

I'll be making a weekly post from now on, unless things get so hectic that I have to do this more frequently! Hope everyone is enjoying the Blog and if there is no one out there reading this, that's also OK as we will still have a great record of our restoration project which we can look back at! :0)

The scaffold is up!

In readiness for the building work to start in earnest next week most of the scaffold is now up apart from around the chimneys. Its starting to look like a proper building site and its great to see things getting underway. Its almost 1 year since we started to think of taking on this restoration and finally the creative work is about to begin!