Knocking Through

In addition to having a conservatory added to the back of the house, we're also moving the entrance to the kitchen sideways to release the dead space under the stairs and thus allow for the installation of a huge new cupboard for large and unwieldy items such as the shredder, the stepladder, the vacuum cleaner, the garden tools, the folding workbench, the laundry drying racks, and the portable time machine. Doing this involves the heart-stopping smashing-through of a structural wall and the insertion of a new concrete lintel to carry the weight; the workmen cheerfully told us that they'd "hardly ever" had a house fall down on them while doing this. Below are some photographs.

The people who will be coming to do the plasterwork and install the electrics for the conservatory should also do the plasterwork for this. And, hopefully, the carpentry for the new door frame and the new cupboard. But if they find that's not in their contract then we can doubtless ask the next builder, who will be calling in late November to install a staircase up to the attic, to add that to his schedule....

What larks, eh?