Starting from the bottom...
Ive just recently spent a week clearing away some of the debris from the lower floor of the cottage. I am going to start by repairing the sole plates and the footings so Ive been busy inside removing the old floors etc to give me space to work and to see what's in store.
One of the great things about the Cottage is that, unlike a lot of other properties, it hasn't had a lot of its original fabric replaced with modern materials. The floors are breathable, the brickwork is built and pointed in lime and the original clay daub is present and predominantly intact.
Its important to keep the Cottage just as breathable as it has always been after the restoration is complete and therefore great care will be taken to make sure the right traditional materials or their modern breathable equivalent are used.
We will be putting a breathable insulated underfloor heating circuit down on the ground floor. After that, I will relay the floor using the original bricks., which are a lovely deep 'pink' colour.
Here we have the original Inglenook fireplace which was bricked up to house a small coal fire and a drinks cabinet! Cleaning out a bricked up fireplace is such a messy job because of the years of soot and debris that's always in there - it just keeps coming!
This is the dining room fireplace, another one thats been bricked up in various degrees over the years. This will need some rebuilding as the arch has failed and its been bashed about to make room for the old boiler flue.
This is the old dining room floor which at some point has had the earth and brick floor replaced with suspended timber. I'll reinstate a brick floor in here too. My first job in terms of actually putting something back in the house will be the sole plates in this room - in the background you can just see what remains of the plate poking up from the floor. Can't wait to get stuck in now!
