Return & Stairs Work

So the digging on the ground floor is complete. Depth is now approx 18"-22" lower than the top of the floorboards. The concrete by the front door was also removed:

Excavation under the stairs and into the return is also finished:

I've begun the tedious task that is stripping the paint from the stair balusters. Hugely time consuming and frustrating, it takes about 40 minutes per baluster to strip paint alone, excluding sanding and prepping. There are over 55 balusters. However you can really see the detail below the layers of paint, which would be far less visible if they were just sanded as-is:

The skirting has also been stripped:

And some clean-up of the top bedroom frame:

The mix of concrete and lime plaster has been removed from the return walls, which was quite damp and damaged:

The 1960s extension to the return, with original insulation:

Work started today on the repair of the foundation of the return, which was largely washed-away over many years by a broken down-pipe from the upstairs toilet:

The full roll-on skip: