New Stair Treads

Patrick began work on the very top flight of stairs this week. As shown in previous posts, they were in a very bad way. I made the decision to replace them all and have the moldings matched and re-made. The results so far are fantastic, with original moldings being blended with new threads in some cases.

As seen below, all the balusters are dovetailed at their bases, where they sit inside the stair treads. Instead of just squaring them off and slotting them straight into a square hole, Patrick is matching the dovetail on the thread with that of the baluster, requiring it to match perfectly and then be tapped into place. This gives the whole stairs much better structural integrity and is an example of his attention to detail.

Ground Floor Works & New Water Mains

Ground floor works continue to progress quickly. The concrete slab in the centre of each room/hallway has now had Kingspan insulated board installed on top and more Leca Insufill has been added around it with limecrete mixed in. The floor is now at a single level. The next step is to allow the limecrete to dry for a few weeks before the underfloor pipework is installed.

Front room:

Rear room:

A little frustrating was the council's decision to run new lengths of water pipe up St. Mary's Road, in front of the house this week. After last year spending a few days running water all the way from Yorke Street at the very back of the garden! The council are only running pipe to everyone's front door, and responsibility to connect the house to the mains left with the owner. The good news is that my builders were on site on the day they were working outside and I now have water running in the front door to a location under the stairs. :)

Apparently the pipework under the road, feeding the stopcock at the back of the house was lead; after all the effort that was put in to replace the lead pipework under the garden/mews. No leads poisoning is always a plus...

Concrete Slabs

So the concrete slabs were finished early this week, laid inside the shuttering:

Work has already begun with the limecrete surround, more updates very shortly.