Progressing Upstairs

An overdue post following some slowing down over the summer by being required to go on holiday, and assisting the farm (extremely busy with our first harvest) by taking on a bit more office work, but work on the house has of course continued and I can now report progress upstairs. The bulk of work downstairs is completed, sufficiently to move in at least. Admittedly a ‘few details’ remain… like rebuilding the bottom of the built-in cupboard frames at the new floor height, and skirting boards. And let’s ignore the tary-floored porch for now, with it’s ceiling partially dismantled for that nice new door that was fitted.

Priority to move in is a working bathroom. It was so grotty it needed complete replacement, so is being re-arranged & the back wall insulated, with the same system as downstairs – wood fibre board & stud wall with wood fibre batts, finished with plasterboard.

What takes time though is the detailing. The edges, the thinner insulation returned on the side wall, the window reveals, the toilet, the sewer pipe going across, then down and up through the roof space to vent, and water pipes. So mega-faff. A massive room with a simple wall would’ve been far quicker. Oh, and then there was the challenge of fitting the insulation around the bath, and the pipe works around the bath, and through the insulation, which took some head scratching. Also needed to plan how to securely fix a shower screen to a wall of woodfibre insulation (which can’t hold screws of any weight) that doesn’t have brick behind because it used to be a window.

Although not planned, we ended up doing the back bedroom in parallel, ‘cos as a simple room it didn’t take much longer. The upside is we might as well finish the back bedroom at the same time, before we move in. And then use it as a bedroom, whilst the large front bedroom is a workshop/building site.

Photo captions explain what’s going on: