Mews Garage Door

After a few months break, work has begun again, this time on the mews at the back of the property. The plan was to widen the opening to 15ft, providing a wide entrance to allow a large saloon-sized vehicle access with ease, without having to maneuver several times out on the narrow street. However it transpires that 15ft was much too long a span for the steel head to support the stone overhead. This resulted in a change of plan to 12ft, which should be sufficient. Below is the mews before any work, with the original 7.5ft wide opening:

The old steel head was already beginning to degrade so replacement was necessary even if I hadn't planned to widen the entrance:

Work began on Monday, installing acros and beams through the stone to temporarily support the weight overhead. This allowed excess stone to be removed, a new reveal built on the right side and the insertion of a new steel head, comprising two steel beams and steel support plates:

Stone slowly being removed whilst the new reveal is built:

The walls are slightly thinner than the house itself, 19" thick:

Overhead:

Much of the red brick from the original right hand reveal had started to crumble, so what was salvageable was used to face more modern blocks.

New steel and supporting plates were then inserted:

The supporting plates below. The old "plates" were slate!

The finished reveal:

Just a small bit of the stone rubble:

The finished job, some daytime pictures coming soon:

Bathroom Floor

After a long delay, work has begun again. The first area receiving attention is the bathroom floor, which had to be emptied of the bath and toilet so it could be professionally sanded. The end finish will be a chestnut stain and clear varnish.

The sanding below is a rough sand; it's to be followed by a medium sanding and then a fine sanding:

The floor boards are original and approximately 190 years old, still in excellent condition:

A colour sample of the proposed stain:

Martin was quite surprised by how well the stain took to the dry boards, he didn't expect them to accept the stain as well as a fresh piece of timber. The whole floor should be complete in a few days.

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.