Back to the original

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Some of the alterations made by the previous owners were misguided. I don't know what was going through their heads but wooden beams were installed over apertures instead of stone lintels, a change way too rustic for a town house. When we came to replace the old lintel above the door, there were two challenges that faced us. Above the aperture are two wooden beams holding the roofs of both the kitchen and the dining room. This meant we were not sure the lintel would hold both. As a solution we introduced an RSJ (rolled steel joist) above the lintel, hidden behind the stone. You can still see the RSJ ends were the stone cladding has not yet been applied (see picture above). The second challenge was finding an old lintel of a similar length. Most we found were too short but Frank (our mason) finally sourced one.



The window in the dining room was wider than its height, dimensions that are not in keeping with houses of the period. We transformed it into a long and narrow aperture. The 4 corners will have a design consistent with the door next to it. This still needs to be added.




Today I only went to check on the house when the workers had already left. They had been doing some clearing out (the rubble always seems to accumulate so quickly) and must have found these old bottles. It's probably an old stash of alcohol kept down in the stairwell. I have now taken them home to clean and will probably place them in the glass cabinet in the stairwell when the place is ready. Must make a point of finding out their date of production.