Floors, Walls and Staircases!

The last post was all about taking walls, floors and ceilings out, whereas this time it's about putting them back in...Yay!

The big 600mm wall has gone and we've replaced it with this block wall whilst at the same time opening up the kitchen  into the dining and living area to make the room flow better and offer a more sociable space.

This space will be the 3rd bedroom and downstairs toilet, previously it held the bathroom and one set of stairs.

 The new staircase will go here although we still need to cut out a doorway at the top into the bedroom on the left. Unfortunately the landing (albeit small) will have to come out of the bedroom on the right which makes it slightly smaller.  The original plan was to have the landing in the middle between the two but the steel girder and the position of the staircase prevented this from happening.

As you can see we still don't have any ceilings but this view is from the front door looking back through the cottage.  The doorway on the right has since been blocked up again and re-opened further along the wall for the loo and the window you can see at the back has had to swap places with the back door to accommodate the stairs, talk about putting a jigsaw together : )

The next step was to get the concrete floors laid and after months of rubble and bedrock the concrete mixer was a welcome sight (sad I know)!

Before the concrete can be poured the damp proof layer has to be laid and this is what it looks like....who knew!

Here it comes,,,,watch your feet!

Et Voila! At last it's starting to look like a floor!

Next was the staircase and ceilings.  We decided to raise the floors upstairs to give more headroom in the lounge and as the bedrooms have a vaulted ceiling they still feel roomy.

These are the bones of our new staircase and not a rotten tread to be found anywhere!  The poor estate agent who showed me around nearly broke his ankle climbing the old ones.  We've positioned them in the kitchen next to the 3rd bedroom so we now only have one set of stairs.

New ceiling all ready for first fix electrics and plumbing!

Vaulted ceiling in the bedroom, although the water tank needs to go!

Our next task is to put the rooflight in above the stairs and increase the number of velux's in the bedrooms and kitchen to let the light flood in.  I'll share some photos next time!