Tearing Down Walls and Building Anew

The weekend before last we gutted a couple of walls in the ‘old’ house; a wall at the foreground and the wall to the right of this ‘yellow’ wall.  Last weekend our task was to remove the ‘yellow’ wall, strip the lining off the wall beyond, then build a frame for this area which will be our new library.

First task was to remove the gyprock/drywall on the outer wall, the window opening here is to be filled in and this will be a long uninterrupted wall for bookcases 🙂

This was formerly a cupboard but truly dead space and I was rather excited to see it go. On the other side to the right, was another cupboard/dead space, so rather a happy moment to see this area be opened up.

This doorway to the left is part of the dead area I referred to, on the immediate right is the other cupboard, the doorways themselves are wasted space, but no longer. Gutting the walls of an old house is filthy work and there can be ‘unpleasant surprises’.

Pulling down walls actually takes a lot longer than you might think, it’s not a simple matter of ‘smash, bash’ as those pieces of hardwood are darn solid and safety is important.

The space above the door frame has been ‘lifted’ to the ceiling and the wall to the right of the doorway has been opened up by half a metre. Totally eliminating the former ‘rabbit warren’ effect when entering the small bathroom directly ahead and Michelangelo’s bedroom around the corner to the right.

With the walls gone and the area all ‘opened up’ it is all looking so promising, I begin to realise the new library is going to be rather…huge!

Ah see, my charming holes in the floor problem, the hole and the sheeting will be covered with floorboards, but as the sheeting is already the same height as the floorboards we’re not sure yet how we’ll make the floor level.  Here PC is installing a solid brace for the wall frame to sit on.

We’d ordered half the wall frame pre-made (waiting in first picture) but PC made the second frame.  As always, impressed with how clever and confident he is.

Decisions had to be finalised regards the kitchen extension, to the left, before we could progress with the library, the new kitchen’s length impacted on how wide we could make the doorway of the library. We finally settled all decisions and the library’s opening is 1300cm/512in.

The wall is up! and the library is taking shape!! It’s incredible how different it looks, it’s going to be so spacious! Do I sound excited? you bet! 🙂