Progress on the House - Connecting the Kitchens
The cottage and the house each have a lean-to at the back which each contained a bath/WC and a kitchen. Joining them together I won't be needing this redundancy and this provides the opportunity to create a new and much more functional kitchen and bath.
But the first step is to remove the structural wall that divides the 2 lean-tos. Time to call the mason.
Actually, the real first step was to demolish the interior walls and plaster ceiling in the cottage lean-to so we could get at the rest of it better.
In the top image I'm standing in what was the kitchen for the cottage, looking towards a WC, shower/laundry space. In the second image I've torn down most of the interior walls.
Here is the space pretty much gutted. The far wall is the connecting wall in question. It's made of concrete block. It once had a door opening in it that was blocked up and there was also a clay tile flue.
The photo above shows the opposite side. This is the kitchen for the house and I need to try to keep it functional while I do the work. Fortunately there is only a cabinet against the wall to be demolished. I'll lose the work surface but my sink and stove won't be disrupted.
The wall on its last day in existence.
As it turned out, the wall was effectively non-structural in that it only had to carry its own weight, the roof being supported by the adjacent walls. So no new concrete lintel was required.
One more barrier brought down. Somebody bring me a croissant!
The cottage and the house each have a lean-to at the back which each contained a bath/WC and a kitchen. Joining them together I won't be needing this redundancy and this provides the opportunity to create a new and much more functional kitchen and bath.
But the first step is to remove the structural wall that divides the 2 lean-tos. Time to call the mason.
Actually, the real first step was to demolish the interior walls and plaster ceiling in the cottage lean-to so we could get at the rest of it better.
One more barrier brought down. Somebody bring me a croissant!
I wish I were there to lend a hand! I'm a former carpenter and building contractor in the US, and when I've rented houses in France (pre-Covid), one of my favorite things to do was to tackle the deferred maintenance issues that often plague second homes. I've rebuilt fences, rehung and planed doors, repaired broken windows, etc. It's satisfying to see what one has accomplished at the end of the day, and this house/cottage is going to be lovely.--Marylee MacDonald (former contributing editor to Old-House Journal; author of the National Trust Preservation Brief on Plaster; co-owner of Working Women Construction).
ReplyDeleteHi Marylee! How nice to read your comment. Thanks for stopping by. It motivated me to put up a progress post on the kitchen. So I just did that. When you have a moment I hope you'll drop by again. I'll be adding a few more posts over the coming week, as I've made a lot of progress recently. By the way, I've long enjoyed the Old House Journal. Great magazine!
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