As we move on to different projects I'll collect the stuff from this page and stick it on the Archive page so you can choose to view whatever page you like. Alternatively you can just click on 'Previous' and 'Next' to navigate to the various pages.
|
Bits and Pieces
After we cleared all the rubble away and set the magic stone upright we caught up with a couple of jobs that we've been intending to do for ages.
The first was to correct the drainpipe arrangement on the street side of the house. The layout was a bit Heath-Robinson and we'd never been too happy with it from the beginning. No big deal. We dismantled it and put it back up in a simpler form. |
|
The next job was to remove the glass canopy which sheltered the front door. This was embedded deep into the wall and had been welded together in situ. So it was a pain to remove.. |
Windows and Doors
After sorting those bits out our next job has been to replace all the windows with new double glazed units.
Before we could make a start on that, we had to sort out the rightside upstairs sill, which was lower than the other two. So the first job was to remove that and make a new one level with the other two and of the same proportions. After grinding the original off we made a wooden box, which was attached to the wall, and then filled it with concrete. When the concrete was set we took the shuttering away and Bob's your uncle, so to speak. |
|
We started with the garden side of the house and the small window on the bottom left hand side. All the windows were ready-mades - double-glazed hard wood windows and we've been buying them over the last few years. Going down the bespoke route would have been massively expensive, besides which, most of the apertures accomodated the new frames really well. We had to make the odd adjustment but, in the main, most fitted without too much trouble.
|
|
The small window in the breadoven room
|
|
Next, was the middle window and then the windows on the front upper floor.
|
|
Upstairs garden facing - left-hand window
|
|
Upstairs garden facing - middle window
|
|
Upstairs garden facing - right-hand window
|
|
The Doors. Installing the doors was a bit trickier than the windows. The door on the left-hand side front was replaced, like for like, with a glass patio door. We had to channel away at the granite door jamb to accomodate the dimensions of the door. We couldn't get anything slightly smaller, the next size down being considerably smaller. After a bit of a slog it finally fitted in place.
|
|
In the case of, what will be, the kitchen we wanted to replace the window, which fronts the garden, with a patio door.
So this was a lot more complicated than the previous one because it involved converting a window into a door opening. We had to carefully undermine the granite sill and lower it down on to a trolley. After that we had to cut or remove the lower granite blocks. The better cut of these we used as vertical sides for the new door jamb. We had to cut these with a circular saw to get the right dimensions and then mortar them in with a mix of fine granite lime mortar.
|
|
The Windows on the road-side of the house
These windows were reasonably straightforward in terms of dimensions and their match for the existing apertures. The only tricky bit was the small window directly above the staircase opening. We had to build a scaffold in order to work on this one and it made life slightly more awkward compared to the others.
|
|
Ground floor window - middle
|
|
Ground floor left-hand side window.
|
|
Small window in the middle of the first floor.
|
|
Small window above the staircase - first floor right-side.
|
