Deconstruction

Firstly, apologies to Ed. We've been making a little bit of a racket today, which hopefully hasn't been too irritating.

A couple of days ago I was happily scooping out small trowels full of hardcore from the fire hearth, having removed the Edwardian tiles - which match those in the original cast iron fire place - for later attention. I had been pessimistically informed that, in removing said tiles, the downstairs ceiling would come down also ... thankfully not the case, as the scraps of brick, sandstone, plaster, and heaven only knows what else, what happily compacted on top of a floorboard-constructed plinth.

That's where a lot of the easy stuff stopped. Now we're in the process of putting new floorboards down. Thing is, to put new ones down, you have to get rid of the old ones. The majority were easy, and were all too willing to shatter (yes, they shattered, rather than splintering) as we lifted them. However, there were one or too which presented a bit more of a challenge - the ones under the door frames and walls. Oh joy.

Anyways, I've discovered an aptitude for hitting pieces of wood rather hard with a chisel and mallet. Oh yes. Hence the noise. And I also have sufficient patience to use a junior hacksaw to dispose of unwanted nails in places where you can't see and saw at the same time (under the walls, between the joists). Lovely. As a result I have somewhat stiff hands, and undoubtedly come morning will be unable to move best sharpish for a while, after doing getting into some strange, Pilates-type positions to try and achieve the best purchase on the nasty nails.

The noise should finish tomorrow - by which time offending floorboard will be thoroughly removed, and new pine inserted in its place. (Himself is doing a fab job of putting the new floorboards down and those already laid look damn amazing.) At the moment we're doing the trickiest bit - under two doorways - so progress is slow, but hopefully in a week or so there will be a lovely, shiny (well, sort of) new pine floor in the (hopefully soon to be) first floor bedroom.

Then we can decide what to do about the lath and plaster walls. They are already pretty dodgy - wouldn't you be at 100+ years old? - so chances are there's be lots of mess and dust (but, if we can manage it, no ceiling) to come. But at least there's going to be a lovely floor to catch it all!!

The renovation is, officially, underway. :)