lounge – Page 3 – Rookie Renovators

Break on through to the other side

Our 1st floor hole in the wall needed to become a doorway. As this is one of the few places where a stone wall could be exposed and not cause a damp or particularly cold patch, we’d like the side that isn’t already covered in brick to be able to be exposed stone. Which means we get to play high stakes Tetris!

We were hoping to get started on a Saturday, but we had a meeting with a window salesman to give us a quote first thing. Nevertheless, Ethan’s dad decided to continue work on the hole in the wall without us while we chatted to a terrified window man in the forest of acrows below – I think he’d been expecting a sit down on a sofa and a nice cup of tea while we had this chat. He even remarked “I would sit down, but I have to wear these trousers to my next one” when we offered him an only slightly dusty work platform as a chair.

Next thing, a call comes from upstairs, “Ethan, gonna need you to come up here”; the wall had started trying to collapse on him, having removed the stone that we’d previously considered too destabilising to remove. Ethan rushed up the ladder to grab the stones that were slipping. I remained downstairs, recoiling with the window salesman at the BANG as the stone was thrown to the side – as much as any stone that size can be. I’m sure the window guy felt super safe and thought we knew EXACTLY what we were doing.

Once the window guy was gone we were able to start Tetris-ing it up. With Ethan’s dad on final stone selection, placement and mortaring. Mine and Ethan’s job was primarily to search the giant piles of stones for anything with a right angle – we were going to need many. Ethan also had the fun of lifting duty – carrying ridiculous sized stones that we had previously thrown downstairs back up the ladder.

We worked on the wall in layers, completing a few in a session and allowing the mortar to set a little between, so that it could hold the layers above more securely. See the wall grow:

The builders let us know when we were partway through that they would be able to come in to install the new beams, and to open up a doorway in the ground floor of this same wall. So we tried our best to build as much as we could and stabilise the wall expertly – as ever with health and safety always in mind.

Solid as a rock…. or many rocks piled on top of each other with a massive overhang.

This is what was going on below:

Looking into the first floor stone wall from below

While they were opening up this hole, they discovered that the pillar holding up the central beam in the future lounge turned out to only be one brick thick (as is custom in this house), and looked less than happy when the stone was removed from behind it. The builders tied the brickwork into some new brickwork that was used to tidy up one side of the doorway, and included some metal ties to strengthen the connection.

We continued our stonework so that we could eventually install some concrete lintels at the top of the doorway. Having discovered that the RSJ supporting the roof was currently resting on a bed of diagonal brick, we made some improvements while we were there. This gave us an excellent excuse to remove most of the remaining brick archway. Here are a few more pictures of progress and where we are currently:

The RSJ is now supported on a nice, solid concrete block wall and a FLAT concrete lintel bed; most of the brick of the archway is gone, giving us more room for insulation, and removing the curved surface that we were previously working to; and finally, the stone is all the way up to the concrete lintels , so now we have a structural feature ready to be pointed and on display in the hallway.

Oh, and here’s the one the builders did between the kitchen and the garage (soon to be lounge)…

So there you have it: Two new door holes ready for use.

In the last stint of stone walling the cement mixer decided to give up, smelling a bit warm before we could clean it out. Thankfully we had the hose set up nearby already. After some internet searches using the symptoms, Ethan ordered a new capacitor, unsure if it was actually the part that needed replacing, but worth a try. On opening up the mixer, we were pretty certain he’d diagnosed correctly:

Pretty sure those holes aren’t supposed to be there, but they certainly explain the hot smell! Ethan’s dad now has a working mixer again, that we can continue to borrow!

P.S. Ethan was pretty proud of this title. He was upset he didn’t think of it when we were actually breaking through to the other side though!

No aspect of the project is easy, but the floors, so far, are our least favourite problem. Our ideal home would be well insulated, with underfloor heating on the ground floor. This would result in a nice, even, well-distributed warmth throughout both the kitchen and lounge (which is currently a garage).

Most sources seem to agree on a subfloor consisting of: 100mm hard-core, 50mm blinding sand, damp-proof membrane, 100mm concrete, about 100mm insulation and 50-75mm screed. Then you need to install flooring on top of that – let’s say minimum 20mm. This all adds up to at least 420mm. Every single person we have mentioned this value to since starting this project has said “Really? That’s a LOT!”. So began our gradual realisation that not every question can be answered by the internet.

Our structural engineer wanted to see how deep the stone walls went into the ground and advised us to dig to the depths we’d need for the floor against a wall. So we started in the kitchen. And hallelujah, stone down all the way in a 42cm deep hole. The structural engineer did give us a few pointers to minimise the depth a little, which would save us some money on the digging out and replacing, without compromising the structural strength. Our plan was a goer. So we continued ahead with other jobs and planning.

The builder still suggested that the total depth suggested was deeper than should be required and offered suggestions of less hard-core and less sand – maybe even no concrete. We’d have to run these by building control and the structural engineer of course.

We had been thinking that digging exploration holes in the garage/lounge would be a good plan as we believe it was built later than the rest of the house, so perhaps had a different structure. But other jobs got in the way, and the garage was being used as storage until the shed could be cleared.

We were fairly confident about the wall depth though. Having been built later, surely building standards are always improving, and no one would have thought to build a retaining wall with no foundation below the inside ground level. We were wrong.

Holes in the garage/lounge floor – horizontal yellow chalk line shows the approximate height of the floor on the other side

Yep, that’s mud/gravel under our granite stone walls – queue worried calls to the structural engineer and building control. Thankfully both confirmed that the lesser depth of hard-core and sand was ok. However, the structural engineer also informed us that we would have to underpin the inner walls should we dig down in the garage, as originally planned.

“Underpinning” is a word no home-owner wants to hear. It’s an expensive last resort, and a permanent blot on the building’s record that may put off future buyers (and must be disclosed). At this point it felt like the house was laying traps for us, fighting us every step of the way.

oh no pain GIF by It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

So new decisions have to be made. This plan is clearly going to require careful negotiation between building control, the structural engineer, building costs, and the house itself, all mediated by us. Thankfully, Ethan doesn’t mind making phone calls too much – I am really not a fan – and thankfully he’s also been managing to put up with me sitting next to him whispering additional details at him halfway through these phone calls.

And now the fear has set in. Did we just HAPPEN to dig against the one wall in the kitchen that continues into the ground? We had chosen one of the non-retaining walls, as suggested by the structural engineer. This was chosen as we were all fairly confident that for a retaining wall to have, well, remained and retained, it must have had some amount of footings underground – but this particular assumption has gone the way of the proverbial in the garage/lounge.

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Before this, we had been considering a step down into the garage/lounge from the kitchen/diner. This would leave the new window (in place of the garage door, but re-using the existing lintel), at a height in the wall similar to the windows in the kitchen. Now, if we want to avoid underpinning, we will need to have a step up instead. The mathematically-inclined amongst you will note that that totals two steps’ difference, resulting in the bottom of the lounge window being approximately 50cm from the floor. Worse, the top would be below eye level when stood up (even for us!), and the ceiling will be pretty low.

It’s possible that we could save some height by not having underfloor heating, but again the internet is refusing to tell me exactly how much – too many variables!

But, it’s a stone cottage. It’s a living room. How much time do you really spend stood up in your living room? And we’ll end up with ~~an absurdly low window~~ a lovely window seat! If building control will allow the ceiling height, then what a cosy room it could be.

We’ll have to do more exploring in the weeks to come. We’ll let you know what the final plan ends up being… if we ever get one.

Tag: lounge

The Doors

Break on through to the other side

Our least favourite problem