Are you gonna try an' make this work Or spend your days down in the dirt - You see things CAN change - YES an' walls can come tumbling down! Paul Weller.

With so much to do and so many contractors involved I adopted the same methodology that I used in phases 1 and 2 drawing up a detailed plan on graph paper with fairly accurate measurements. I then used this to write a full specification that I needed from each trade and put them out to tender. Then having organised all this I did the 'look at me I'm a real builder' thing and stuck the before and after plans to the wall in the main room that was to be converted so they could refer to it if required.....

I'm not boasting that this plan was perfect, far from it but I used the techncal drawing skills that I had gleamed from my secondary school to draw something half decent. In truth my Technical drawing classes were not the most successful as half the time the fire alarm would be set off by the metal work classes (in the same block) and we'd all be evacuated. Or I'd be interrupted by flying pencils, flicking rulers or boomeranging set squares. I near enough gave up trying when right infront of the teacher (who was paying no attention) my nemesis and unrelenting school bully stood behind me and head butted me sending me plummeting to the floor. This school was on a route of decline at this point with a Prefect being stabbed for not letting another student in during break time and they even set fire to the school. Sadly the arsonist was so thick that they just set fire to the tuck shop run by the students for the students! I blame my brothers as they were both Head Boys at the school just ahead of me. Following in their wake I was a severe disappointment to the teachers who found it hard to believe that I was related to them.
"Andrew and James' brother! Are you sure? We are talking about the same lads are we? The last two Head Boys?"
"Yes sir", I would answer rather meekly. 
They'd look me up and down with an eyebrow raised, "Mmmmm", they'd consider for a moment and finally I could see them coming to terms with the disappointment knowing that they would have one less University candidate to their name.
I think it was only as a result of my brothers reputation that I made it to the dizzy heights of "Sub-Prefect", not even a full blown "Prefect". More a sub-standard version, of course as I walked around the school with my shiny new badge pinned to my lapel I would be greeted by being called a sub-perfect twat.        Life was not easy at school.

My builder was to start the work by removing the walls that separate the study from the main room but unfortunately he had squeezed our job in and so cold not start in time for this task and so I had to do it with some help from my father.
We had barely started before coming across these polystyrene tiles nailed to the interior of the stud wall, I assume as an insulation material. This material is classed as highly flammable or "Easily Ignited" and as such a little concerning that some of my walls were stuffed with it. There were 5 tiles in a stack held to the wall with a single nail but all very loose and I don't think they were that effective.

The photo above is just to illustrate where the wall was in the photo below.

 This wall put up a bit of a fight, most of the timber beams had super-size nails but it was mainly constructed from a covering of poor grade chipboard. Whilst I was tackling this I had a plumber and electrician crawling around lifting floorboards and chiselling out chunks of wall as they started their first fix. As we worked, my father and I, found ourselves trying to unravel the last alterations to this portion of the house. As I said most of the wall was chipboard stud and we already knew that the stairs had been moved sometime in the last 30 years. We found an old door layout formed in the floor boards that had been hidden under the stud wall and then as we moved onto the next wall more of these changes came to light. The next wall had a large amount of lath and plaster removed which had been replaced with chipboard and a doorway.

Slowly but surely we began to see back a couple of hundred years and formulate an understanding of how the room would have looked originally.

The old lath and plaster was clearly very old as the struts were attached to the attic rafters and ceiling.
Bit by bit I carried on dismantling this room. It might seem like heresy to true building historians but the willow laths would go on to make excellent kindlng for my fires.
This is going to be a cold winter, so cold that I would quite literally be burning the walls of my house to keep warm!

Here you can clearly see where at some point a chunk of lath and plaster had been removed in order that a door could be fitted. The small room ,we surmised, had been located in this position previously but was originally accessed from within the old bedroom only and was probably a wash room come dressing room.There would have been a jug of water and a bowl for them to carry out their ablutions.
As you look at the photo you can see the landing at the back of the picture. Well we believe that the stairs used to ascend right under the newer door and reach the top right in front of the brown door in the view.  This would make entry via the new door that I was dismantling impossible previously. Therefore the white wall to the right never existed and the original door to the main bedroom was beyond that which is now the new relocated position of the stairs. Does that all make sense to you? I hope so.
I continued to tear the place appart....

Here you can see where the newer stairs have been repositioned to.Well that hole is where we believe the original entrance to the bedroom would have been.
I was concerned that this stud wall was too thin and therefore not going to make a good acoustic barrier. This meant that I had to remove the covering and lining so a thicker stud could be created with special acoustic rock-wool filling the void.
Having peeled off more of the chipboard I once again found a shed load more of the polystyrene tiles nailed on as insulation.

Now just to remind you this was how the room looked prior to us starting the demolition......

And this is how it looked a week later....

.........Work in progress

This had taken the best part of a week to accomplish but I had removed every nail and screw from every piece of wood as I removed them. I now have a garage full of wood either for use in my allotment (for making netted cages) or for use elsewhere or indeed as fire wood.

Apart from the built in wardrobe to the right, which will end up being the en-suite, I had now completed the demolition in the main bedroom and it was ready for the builder to move in.

I however had not finished destroying walls, no, now I needed to go to my daughters bedroom and remove a wall, something, I instinctively sensed, that she will not be happy about!




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