Landing

We tried to get an early start today, as we spent quite a lot of time first thing yesterday checking that we were happy with how, particularly, the master bedroom was going to work once re-sized. We're sacrificing about 60cm from the room to make the landing bigger, and moving the door to the other side of the bed, closer to the stairs, so that you don't come through the landing (soon to be the study) to get to the bedroom. Losing the space means that the dresser that was at the foot of the bed will need to find a new home, and the bed will need to move sideways as well as forwards, but not by much. All in all, we're happy with how it will turn out.

Master bedroom from three angles, before moving around into new layout (© Ian 2014)

As a result, after we finished insulating the bathroom, and fitting (and checking!) the new shower over the bath, we spent the last few hours of today hanging up a curtain to screen the bedroom from dust, and started dismantling the stud wall that separates landing from bedroom.

The en suite insulated and lined out (© Ian 2014)

From the ensuite through to the master bedroom, with the new shower and replaced bath on right (© Ian 2014)

The en suite's basin is still waiting to move... (© Ian 2014)

...over to this corner: the pipework's in the floor, ready. The cavity slab now fills the void where an old (first floor!) external doorway was: this was blocked up with a single skin of stone, and a timber frame inside. Interestingly, the tilework ran all the way to the door, so it was, presumably, a door into a tiled room before it was blocked, probably at the same time as the kitchen extension was built (the roof of which covers the blocked door) (© Ian 2014)

Before we did this, we actually spent a little while figuring out how the airing cupboard, currently between the two bathrooms, was constructed. In preparing for the shower installation, I spent some time in the loft, getting cable access sorted, and realised that the two bathrooms have a false ceiling. The original ceiling, about 10' tall and matching in finish the guest room and study ceiling (in the original cottage at the other end of the house), has been replaced some time ago (1970ish?) with an 8' ceiling that matches in finish the master bedroom and landing (the middle cottage). However, it's the only ceiling that was that high.

I'd never noticed, though the evidence has always been there to see: the ceiling in the airing cupboard, through which one ascends into the loft, is higher and different; and the loft itself is much shorter than elsewhere (much less space to stand). However, I only properly registered while trying to put a cable hole through the bathroom ceiling, and couldn't find it in the loft...

This has created a couple of complications. The airing cupboard is being taken out, and the space it occupied (plus a foot from the en suite) is being given to the bathroom (soon to be guest bedroom). That means all its walls are soon to be dismantled: but the ceiling is supported by them. Secondly, these walls, counter to my foolish assumption, are light cement block walls (not studs, as they are dividing bedroom from landing, and study from guest room).

We'll just have to cope with the extra work of dismantling cement block walls (fortunately, they're weak blocks, and not ridiculously strong mortar, like in the garage, which I eventually replaced with a deliberately weaker wall)

The unsupported ceiling, we'll probably deal with by removing the false ceiling from what will be the guest room, leaving it only in the en suite.

As this was not the job we had envisaged, we moved on to taking down the landing stud wall. It's come down reasonably easily, and we're now left with the timber framework.

The landing, with the shelves taken down, before we ripped off the plasterboard (© Ian 2014)

Landing from bedroom end, with shelves (© Ian 2014)

Landing from stairs end (© Ian 2014)