Home Improvements: Glass Doors

18-20 February: Deconstruction started on Monday. Andy-the-builder brought two helpers with him, and since Andy also did our new driveway and front pathway, we were familiar with everyone who appeared. It felt like a family reunion! I made pots of coffee, scrambled around looking for coffee mugs that didn’t mind a bit of cement flung on them, and then tried to stay out of their way while they worked. It was cold. The temperature was below freezing, and within a few hours our dining room window was out of its frame, and we had a big gaping hole with the wind blowing through toward the front door.

Photos include dining room interior: window, flooring, radiator – before work started and progress during the next three days. Building equipment and salvaged brick from around the window for reuse, photo of dining room window removed, and debris accumulates. The tri-folding glass wall was installed today and support braces removed. It’s still not air-tight yet and the insulation boards need refitting. The amount of daylight that streams into the room is remarkable, even on a cloudy, rainy day! Let in the sunshine!

The laminate flooring is gone in the dining room and the hallway, and there’s some silver lining paper-kinda-stuff on the floor now to keep us from tracking brick and cement dust around the house. I’ve stopped dusting and mopping the floor. I’ll do it at the end of the day … if I feel like it. Grit is a part of my life now.

Tomorrow the plumber and gas CORGI man will work on moving radiators, and if we can fit the new boiler without a flue that reaches halfway to moon. The idea is to make the small window in the utility room non-openable so that fumes from the gas boiler can’t roll back into the house. Laws changed on flue placement since our house was built in mid-90s.

I believe the kitchen and dining room wall come tumbling down tomorrow also! That will be a huge event. The lintels go in also so the house doesn’t turn into a pile of tumbled-down bricks.