The Restoration - Week Seven

The original estimate on this job was 14 weeks, so the end of week 7 signals the half way point. There's still a lot to be done but the weather continues to be on our side and hopefully we are more or less on schedule.

This week attention moved around to the west wall which is the oldest wall in the house. Its stone and made from two parallel rubble walls, the middle then filled with all kinds of soil, straw and other "stuff", much of which has long since fallen down to the base leaving big voids.

The wall will eventually be grouted - filled with a liquid slurry of lime mortar and tied together with about 30 stainless steel "Spiroties" - but first it needs to be stabilised by raking out loose mortar, repairing it where stone is falling out and then repointing it with lime mortar. This was the main job this week and eventually the top half of the wall was completely repointed by Friday.

The first section is raked out and repointing can begin

By Friday this wall will be repointed at this level right to the far end

What a transformation - the repointed section looks great and has some strength

By Friday the top of the wall is repointed and put to sleep under its protective Hessian cover to allow the lime mortar to set slowly 

Even having only been repointed so far, the difference in the strength of this wall is VERY noticeable. After the render came off it could be moved in places just by pushing it! Now its solid again. Once the Spiroties and lime grout go in it'll be ready for the next 400 years :0)

Apart from the west wall some finishing touches were made to the kitchen wall. Specially made stainless steel brackets were attached to the underside of the oak ceiling joists to tie them into the new brickwork more effectively. This wall and these joists are now much stronger than they've been for a couple of hundred years by my guess!

The new stainless steel brackets which will be painted matt black and will blend in with the old beams

Another job was finished off by completing the brickwork above the new arch for our French doors. The Acroprops are gone and all we need is a triple glazed French Door to fill the hole!

This new arch and its brickwork are done and the Acroprops are gone

On Friday, the sun came out and it seemed like a nice time to take another shot of the south aspect with 4 reinstated brick arches and the new curvy kitchen wall on the lower right of the photo. Next week - more repointing of the stone wall!

Another sunny day - let's hope the weather stays with us!

The Restoration - Week Six

Suddenly in week 6 we seemed to see huge progress as we almost got our kitchen wall back and new arches were completed on three more windows....... And preparations started inside the house ahead of grouting our big old, very hollow, stone wall.

The south wall of our kitchen is back, completed with an arch above the window

This wall is a tribute to the masons who skillfully built it with a 3 inch curve to match the bedroom wall above. Just a little bit of brick work remains to be finished but that will have to wait for a few days as we wait for delivery of the specially fabricated stainless steel brackets which will be bolted to the undersides of the ceiling joists and tied into the top courses of bricks.

Having almost reinstated the south wall of the kitchen work moved to the other side of the room where the arch of the north window was reinstated.

The north window of our kitchen with its new arch in place

This was a very quick job with work on this arch and the brickwork above completed in less than a day. Attention now moved to the north gable where brickwork and lintels were stripped out of the upstairs bedroom window and the patio door where our new French window will be fitted.

Two more lintels being removed and arches ready to be rebuilt

Within a couple of days the reveals on the French door opening had been repaired, the steel lintel treated and replaced and a new arch built.

The restored brickwork around the opening for our new French door

 So three new arches are in place and a lot of other brickwork was repaired in week 6

In a few weeks the big west stone wall will be grouted to fill in all the hollow, weak areas which make this wall very unstable. Grouting involves pouring a lime mortar slurry into the wall, gradually moving up the wall a little at a time over a period of probably a couple of weeks to allow the progressive layers to harden a bit before pouring the next one on top. So that the mortar doesn't just pour out of gaps in the internal stonework, this had to be revealed in a couple of rooms where it was hidden behind dry linings. This way we can check the state of the stonework internally and point and plaster it in lime before the grout is poured.

Internal stonework on a small bedroom wall is in reasonable shape

Apart from some dampness caused by rainwater penetration and a slightly rotten lump of oak, this wall is not too bad. It wont need much work other than a little pointing and lime plastering before the wall is grouted from outside. A much larger stonewall was next to be revealed.....

Gypsum plasterboard is stripped off the timber studs revealing the stone wall beneath

Plasterboard and timber studs completely stripped

This big internal wall is covered in a mixture of very old cement render with what looks like lumps of lime in it, as well as other areas of more modern cement render. All of this will be removed in the next week to reveal the stone beneath. There is also an area of old brickwork in the lower centre part of this wall. Finally there are also a couple of big holes where stone is missing, offering a scary view of the voids inside the wall. Its these voids which will be filled eventually with grout, giving the wall its strength back AND stopping the wind which is currently whistling right through it!!

So, that was week 6 - a lot happened and there is still a lot more to be done. In week 7 the kitchen wall should finally be finished, complete with steel ties for the joists and work will start on the big job of raking out and repointing the big stone west wall in lime mortar in preparation for grouting.

The Restoration - Week Five

Over the past week we have gradually seen our new kitchen wall emerge. The bulge in the bedroom wall upstairs means that this new wall has had to be built with about a three inch curve to match the wall above.

Work continued to rebuild the south wall on the kitchen

The right side of the wall is getting close to meeting the wall above

Finally one side meets and the window opening is taking shape

Steel ties are used on alternate courses of brick to stitch the new kitchen wall to the existing walls on each side.

Over the coming week we hope to see the completion of the kitchen wall and work will also start on rebuilding the arch above the window on the north side of the kitchen. The wall below that window is also in need of some repair so the outer skin of bricks will be stripped and replaced with reclaimed ones. Next will be a new arch on one of the upstairs windows on the North Gable.

From now on work on the rest of the brick walls should be relatively straightforward but another BIG job is looming as its been decided to grout the big stone West Wall. This wall is  hollow in places and needs to be strengthened and stabilised. Grouting invokes first of all raking out and repointing the whole wall with lime mortar and then, 1 metre at a time, pouring a lime mortar slurry into the wall to fill up all the voids. But more about this later!!

The Restoration - Week Four

The yard at OLF looks more and more like a building site as the weeks go by. This week a delivery of materials for the kitchen wall foundation arrived.

Watch out for those overhead cables - please!!!

Due the Bank Holiday, it was a shorter week this week, so on Tuesday, the first job of the week was to mix concrete and pour the foundation on which to rebuild the kitchen wall.

By Tuesday afternoon, the concrete is in and work on reconstructing the kitchen wall will soon start

Like many things on this project the rebuilding of the kitchen wall will not be straightforward. This is because the wall in the bedroom above is visibly bowed due to movement which must have taken place many years ago, (due to the non existent foundations), which was also the cause of the eventual demise of the kitchen wall below. Before starting reconstruction, a lot of attention was therefore given to making sure that the reconstructed wall will match the curve of the bedroom wall above. Plum lines were dropped from various points on the wall above to create the correct curve along which to lay the bottom row of bricks. The rest of the wall will now be rebuilt following this line.

The first row of "headers" is laid on the new concrete foundation matching the curve of the wall above

Another "curve" was also recreated this week - the brick arch above the living room window. This is arch number 3 out of 12 which are to be reinstated. Another 3 arches which are still in original condition will also be repaired. Gareth and Rick, the masons working on the job this week, continue to impress with their skills in recreating this brickwork around and above the window openings in keeping with the original building.

An example of the skilled work in rebuilding the old window arches

The arch above the living room window opening is complete.

As you can see in the two photos below, there are clear signs of progress. Thankfully the weather continues to be kind to us. Next week work will start on the window on the north side of the kitchen and the southern kitchen wall rebuild will continue. The latest news from our window suppliers is that the windows will be manufactured by the end of next week. However preparation of the finished windows for the paintshop, the three coat process needed for the linseed oil paint, followed by the final assembly of the windows and window furniture means that they will only be ready for delivery in the last week of September. Consequently we will be living with temporary plastic sheeting for a month yet. So, since we are also without a heating boiler until the internal insulation and lime plaster work can be done on the finished kitchen wall and our new boiler can be installed, we're hoping for a mild September!! I sense that our woodburner may be fired up earlier than normal this year!

This week, I will sign off with a look at the progress made on the south elevations over the last 3 weeks. Some of it is hidden behind the scaffold and our hedge (which is in need of a haircut!) but hopefully you get the idea :-)

Early in week 2 there are a lot of holes in the south side of the house!

By the end of week 4 three arches have been restored, damaged brickwork in the gable repaired and the kitchen wall rebuild is under way  (bottom right) 

 

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)