Room gets crowded

In order to sort out the current dining room we've had to move some furniture out so it is now sitting on our well insulated and thoroughly screwed down floor in the front room.

plumbing radiator

Insulation finished!

We have finished insulating under the floor in our current living room. Its been another messy day with floorboards up and nowhere proper to walk but at last it is done. The foam insulation in the alcoves was fun to cut, the joists aren't parallel and they aren't the same distance apart either so it does need some careful measuring and sawing for each gap. The metal foil stuff is far easier to do as long as you are capable of using a staple gun!


The last photo also shows the beautiful, and now working radiator in the bay window. Beautifully plumbed by Chris.

Concrete removal tunnel

Chris has been trying to work out how to remove large chunks of the old concrete hearth without spreading the dust throughout the whole house. This is the contraption he came up with and it meant that the dust went up the chimney naturally. It created a lovely tunnel for him to work in (whilst wearing a dust mask!)

Hard day's work

We lifted all the floorboards, treated the joists for woodworm, laid some insulation and made holes in some of the sleeper walls. Chris had to crawl through the gaps in the sleeper wall just to make sure he had made it big enough! We managed all of this while the girls were at school.

Removing the hearth.

While the girls and I went out for a walk (see here) Chris spent the day lifting floorboards- he's now completed most of the room and starting to remove the concrete that was under the hearth.
The amount of dust in the air is clear from the patterns from the flash.

Floorboards 1

To insulate under the floorboards it requires lifting the floorboards! Obvious really but it really takes rather a lot of time to lift them. So far we have lifted 5 (and put them back down without nails) so there are another 10 to go before all the floor can be insulated and the radiator moved.

Loss of the window seat

Our homegroup really noticed the loss of the window seat which normally provides a few seats for the evening. It is all in preparation for keeping my feet warm with underfloor insulation!!!!

The hole gets bigger

This was the sight that greeted me on my arrival home from work.

The fireplace has gone!!

It is time to bid farewell to our living room fireplace. It has served us well for toasting marshmallows and toes, even if aesthetically it has been a disgrace!


Careful removal of tiles and cutting of the ties holding the whole thing to the wall meant we could pull it out a little and clean out most of the 71 years of soot that accumulates where the sweep's brush cannot reach. The Dyson coped admirably but did require its filters washing twice within 24 hours.






Paul and Beth came round and helped us move the concrete monstrosity out to be demolished in the front garden. Rebekah helped by giving it a gentle push.



I'm half inclined to think that it looks better with a hole than with all the tiles!