In which we had a sandstorm in the attic

FROM THE ARCHIVES

We’d been dithering.

There was quite a lot to do. And we were beginning to realise how clueless we were about, well, everything.

Especially timings and sequencing — what order are you supposed to do stuff in? Why? HOW? This is where project managers earn their keep, I suppose, and as we first did all this in 2016 I can confidently say that I’m still super impressed at project management skills.1

Anyway — here’s what we did after starting on the attic and before the oak flooring arrived:

• Joe and my dad – Adrian – stripped out seemingly miles of cables and nonsense from the attic. Strangely, the porch light and one of the lights in the Rayburn Room no longer work. Makes perfect sense.

• Pulled out an uncountable number of tacks, nails, and cable ties from all the timber.

• Removed the final bits of cladding and random battens.

• Had some more sandblasting done.

To sandblast or not to sandblast

One of our dithers was over whether or not to sandblast the timbers in the attic. We had enough cash to buy and build the floor and have the staircase built and installed before Christmas, but after that, it was feeling a bit tight.

In the end, we decided to go for it because as Chris, our Super Sandblaster, pointed out: if it looks crap when we’ve done the rest of the room, we’d be gutted. And it’d be a right mess to do later.

We’re really, really chuffed we did because it looks ace. Here’s the before:

And here’s the afters (plus the Hole of Doom):

Chris did the bricks as well, which is ace because they were a right mess, and we couldn’t tell what state they were in. As it turns out, there are many types of bricks in all manner of states. A veritable patchwork wall of bits and bobs, much like the inside of my brain. A wall with ADHD, if you like.

We treated all the timbers for woodworm, too. It’s odd stuff – it made Joe and I sneeze continually…

Concrete nightmare

Once we’d done that, our next job was to tackle the panels between the floor and the ceiling slope. Interestingly, we found one panel that was still – we think – the original lath and lime plaster:

I wish we’d realised before we knocked a chunk out. We’re leaving the rest of it in situ, obviously, and we’ll repair the hole we made…

Bad news for the other panels though. They’re concrete, and what looks very much like random lumps of cement. We honestly don’t know what we’re going to do with these, because if there’s no brick in the walls and we take all the concrete out, we might end up rebuilding that whole section of wall.2

And it’s not just the top bit in the attic – the wall continues down into the Wonky Room below.

We did start chipping away at it, but it’s super-hard and it’s going to be a nightmare.3

And the yukky concrete one — do we chip it all out and risk a hole in the wall? Or skim it and ignore it? I don’t want to leave it there, but neither do I want to rebuild an entire section of wall…4

There’s another one of these on the other side of the original panel. And two more at the other end of the room.

What’s next?

So, what did we have left to do before the floor arrived?

• Put eco-friendly, natural plasterboard up on the rafters.

• Skim and paint the ceiling.

• Skim the walls? Or leave the bricks bare? Probably skim them, because they’re quite gappy.

• Put new wiring in (maybe – maybe after the flooring is done).

• Soffits between the wall and the ceiling to stop birds nesting up there again.

• Cut out the new stairwell and remove the old stair gubbins.

And a bunch of other stuff too…