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)