Finished Ceilings, Kitchen & Return Work

At last the first floor front room (living room) had its ceiling installed. The ceiling was filled with rockwool for sound/heat insulation and then slabbed and plastered:

The bedroom behind received the same treatment, but had to be cross-battened to allow room for the above bathroom pipework and additional rigidity due to the weight of a full bath:

(insert final ceiling pic)

The walls are also drying well and are awaiting a skim coat of lime plaster:

This is the lime skim coat which arrived a few days ago. It's pre-mixed so required minimal preparation:

The third window opening in the return was also finally sorted. This opening formed part of the 1950/1960s extension and had a poorly made window installed, which had replaced a previously installed back door. All the breeze blocks laid above and below the window were taken out and filled in again with salvage red brick. A new arched head was also built above the opening:

(insert finished third window pic)

The re-built heads on the other windows turned out very well:

The ground floor rear room walls have always been a problem, since the moment I bought the house. The lower sections of the walls have a sand/cement mix applied and would have been applied to the internal walls within the last 70 years or so in an effort to "keep out damp" or repair damp/damaged lime plaster. The irony is that applying a cement render/plaster traps moisture in the wall, compounding the problem.

This particular room had a concrete slab floor laid, which pushed moisture from the soil up around the edges of the slab into the wall. The cement render on the walls trapped this moisture in place. Once the concrete floor was removed, the walls slowly started to dry out, but the cement render had to be removed to allow maximum drying and breathability.

This render will be replaced with a breathable hydraulic lime plaster. The upper sections of the walls are still lime plaster, but in terrible, cracked/crumbling condition and also patched with modern gypsum plaster so also needs to be removed:

The room as it stands:

The cement on the walls below the window was particularly difficult to remove. Once this is re-plastered in lime, the wall will have full breathabilty from the inside to the outside, with the new lime render on the external wall:

Removing the sand/cement mix from the walls:

More work on this room soon.

More Return Works & Bathroom Mirror

The heads of several windows in the red brick return required attention, as the lime mortar was failing and causing bricks to come loose. To repair them, the heads are first dismantled, removing each brick at a time. The opening is then framed, with a wooden template at the top acting as a guide for the new brickwork.

The removed brick is then placed back as it was with fresh mortar:

As shown many months ago, the soil pipe from the toilet upstairs ran through the below wall into the cast iron down-pipe. This hole had to be filled as it compromised the window head below. Original salvaged brick was used:

And finally onto the 1950-1960s extension; the opening below was a back door at some stage, but was filled in crudely with breeze blocks. These have since been removed and the opening will be built up again with salvaged brick. A new sash window matching the others will be built from scratch:

I sourced these Edwardian style four column radiators from Period Homes in Newry, Co. Down. They'll be positioned upstairs in the return below the landing window and the bedroom window:

And lastly, the mirror I had made for the bathroom arrived at long last. It was quite the head scratcher as to how to safely mount it to the wall (it weighs about 25kg), but in the end I found these small french-cleat style brackets. They're small, but very strong:

Measuring took a solid half hour, but we got it right in the end:

Fireplace & Boiler Stove Installation

The main living room of the house will be on the first floor, above the dining room. This is where the Henley boiler stove will be installed, supplying heat to the room and to the thermal store in the attic.

This was the fireplace opened up by the builders:

When the house was purchased, it had had a Victorian cast iron fireplace surround installed:

This of course is a much later fireplace than what would have been installed originally, so I've since removed it and it will be installed in the room behind, where the fireplace has been opened up once more (pictures below).

To replace this later surround, I managed to get my hands on an original, Georgian marble surround from a Dublin dealer, found by my brother. It dates from approx 1820, the same decade my house was built. Judging by the modest proportions of the house and other fireplaces in the locality, it was likely very similar in design, clean and simple.

It had been cracked in a few places, but expertly repaired by David O'Reilly's Antique Fireplace Restoration:

The 21 KW Henley Druid Boiler stove being plumbed into position:

The finished product, very pleased!

The boiler aspect of the stove works extremely well. There are two pipes running from the rear of the stove, an exit flow and a return flow. The pipes penetrate the right side of the chimney breast and rise up into the ceiling, where they join further pipework that runs to the attic where the thermal store is located.   The pipework on the side of the breast will be concealed by the time this room is completed.

The hot water rises naturally without a pump to the highest point, which is the store itself. When the temperature of the water leaving the stove exceeds a certain set point, a pump kicks in to circulate the water faster, reducing it's temperature to a lower level.

A celebratory drink was in order!

The bedroom located behind the living room had it's fireplace sealed up when I purchased the house. I opened it up to it's original size and the builders added a new concrete head and filled in the required brickwork above:

I never intended to have this as a working fireplace, but now that the scaffolding is in place outside, I've decided to line the flue anyway and at least have the option of using it in the future.

It's unclear whether this fireplace was ever used, as the floorboards seem to be original and there's no slate hearth installed. The underside of the floor does reveal that a hearth was provided for in the form of reinforced joists, but it looks like it was bricked up quite early on.

Trying out the Victorian surround below:

This is the fireplace surround downstairs in the front room (to be the dining room), with the new flue liner successfully run: