This is what it looks like when you rip out everything from inside an old house — and everything means everything — walls, floors, staircase, electrics, plumbing, windows, doors. The only thing we kept was the timber cladding on the outside, which luckily was in good shape. Could have been that it was rotten in which case we would have had to rip that out too, leaving, actually, no house.
Tore off the roof
The rafters and the joists were good enough to keep, but the rest had to go.
Dismantled the balcony
The balcony was listing at 30 degrees to the horizontal. When the boys started taking it down, a couple of the support joists just fell out of the wall.
Then they put it all back together again.
Put the roof back on, with added dormer windows
Insulate throughout
That’s 16 year old son cutting insulation sheets for the walls. A summer job on the building crew.
Put in new windows and doors
Beautiful double glazed modern doors and windows that do that lovely European thing where if you pull the handles one way, they open wide, rotate the other way, they tilt just to let a little bit of air in.
Put the walls and floor back in, with all the gubbins
And there was a lot of gubbins. Plumbing, electrics, all coming up from the basement to the rest of the house.
Underfloor heating
Lay pipes that carry hot water under the floor, then cover in a concrete screed, which takes six weeks to dry.
