Pretty much all the demolition work has been done in the old section of the house. The only thing left was to do was to remove the carcass of the old pantry cupboard so it can be replaced with new timber. First, I needed to remove the architrave and doors from the front. I decided that it was easier not to unscrew all the little screws that held the door’s piano hinges together and just remove it all in one piece.
However, I ran into a slight problem. I got the front all loosened but in doing so, I noticed the top piece of the carcass moved. I got the front off and started tapping out the top with the pry bar. It came fairly readily but one of the bricks above it moved with every tap.
The further I slid it, the looser the block seemed to be and I was starting to worry that if I removed the piece altogether, the stone would end up falling on my head! After some consultation, we decided to leave it for later. After more consultation, we are now thinking to brick in the old door way. It will leave us with no actual pantry cupboard, but the house has no official dining room and without the need to access a cupboard in the middle of the wall, there will be more room for a dining table. So in the end, all I did to the cupboard was remove the front architrave and doors:
I had swept the house before starting on the cupboard (sweeping is a never ending job) so I swept up my mess and went to find something else to work on. I collected an assortment of screwdrivers and started removing the painted on fixtures in the bathroom. We have basically not touched anything in the added on area of the house. We know there is asbestos in that area and we are waiting for the assessors to tell us what is safe to touch. However, the bathroom internal walls are clad in wooden panelling. After the fixtures were gone, I attacked the weird shelfless cupboard in the corner, unscrewing yet another piano hinge.
After the door was gone, I peeled off the wooden panelling on the side of the bath. Of course, it wouldn’t be this house without another layer underneath – tiles. It had been tiled and then panelled over.
Why anyone would panel the side of the tub (not to mention the entire bathroom) is beyond me. Termites had thought it was a tasty snack at some stage:
The real reason I had started on the bathroom however, was to try to find out what was behind the panelling behind the cupboard and bath. Remember that weird little cupboard?
The wall at the back is also limestone brick, just like the wall surrounding the door. I wanted to see where the brick went. The cupboard seems to be built between two walls of limestone blocks. Why? We have no idea. We want to rearrange the bathroom area so we need to know where the brick ends. With some help from my husband, the cupboard came out, giving us access to the panelling behind. He started on a slightly loose board and I made use of his opening to remove some more. This is what we finished the morning with:
Annoyingly, the brick goes around the corner of the room, which could cause issues when we redesign the bathroom. We did however, find the edge of the brick at least:
We pulled down some of the hideous foam ceiling tiles and cornicing:
But after all that, we are none the wiser as to why the cupboard is there and how it came to exist. It is just as baffling as when we started. Why would a house have a tiny little room off what we think used to be the old kitchen?
In other news, the stone wall is finally finished! The protruding stones were scored with an angle grinder and chiselled out with a small drill mounted jack hammer.
Tomorrow will be our last day at the house for this stint. Maybe I will be able to catch a photo of the large blue tongue lizard we saw today…
