Demolition intermission

Our regular readers might have noticed a rather big hole in the place where September’s blog posts on the Greener dream should be.

This is caused by us literally creating big holes, in our interior walls. For the first couple of years the three girls of the family shared a room. It was not easy, a very cramped space occupied by two bunk-beds, a lot of clothes, books, school bags and not very much else.

Two years ago we finished our extension build and one of our girls got her own room and two moved into our old living room. They are seventeen now and have very different interests and ideas about what a bedroom should be used for.

We think it is important for them to each have a space to call their own so at the moment our whole family is involved in project demolition intermission. We are making the two rooms into three by building two new walls and taking down the old original wall. The project also involves moving the radiators, cutting a hole through the exterior wall to install a window for the middle room, raising the ceiling in parts and building new loft beds and book cases.

In the process we uncovered another old fireplace and it will be used as a purely decorative part of one of the rooms, as the chimney for it is blocked up. We think it will look lovely later on when we have tiled the bottom of it, painted it white and added a few candles for cold autumn and winter evenings. But before we get that far we have a lot of measuring, sawing, hammering, plastering and painting to do.

 

One good thing about tearing down old walls are the layers of wallpaper that can be pulled of and carefully separated into layers, the first ones dating from the 1920s or 1930s. We are planning to use all of them for a big collage someday to sum up the history of the house.

The building dust is settling once again on every surface and item in the house and the author of this blog has made a sneak escape to the conservatory. A place where the dust has not yet reached, where the September sunshine makes the plants thrive and where peace can still be found, despite the total and utter chaos in the rest of the house.

We are looking forward to sharing pictures with you here as the work progresses on the various new rooms. We are all having an exciting time despite the hard work.