November 2013

Given the lessons learned from the Living Room floor, we moved on to the Dining Room floor which also had a bit of bounce, although it didn't seem as bad as the Living Room. However, when some of the floorboards were lifted, the situation seemed to be even worse. Here, the cross-beams seemed to be in even worse condition, with the timber reduced to a soft, powdery mess in many places. The earth between the cross-beams was fairly damp, which was contributing to the rotting of the cross-beams. In many cases the floorboards seemed to be sitting on the earth, rather than on the cross-beams which had rotted down below the level of the earth.

Progress - Dining Room

There was no alternative but to lift all the floorboards, remove all the cross-beams, then dig out the damp earth to try to find the cause of the moisture and safeguard against any repetition in the future.

The rotten cross-beams were stacked on the back verandah, while the excavated earth was shovelled out the window onto the verandah. This little exercise highlighted a problem that we had not been fully aware of until now; while most of the renovation was happening inside the building, it was vital to have substantial outdoor space to store materials that would be used later in the renovation or to temporarily store materials and waste that had been removed from the house during the renovation. In this respect, the verandah was invaluable!

Once the excavation had been completed, a new sub-floor frame was constructed, with the support beams bolted into the concrete under the surrounding walls. The ample space between the underlying earth and the sub-floor frame is clearly visible, and gives plenty of scope for ventilation under the floorboards.

Once the sub-floor framing was complete, Oriented Strand Board (OSB) was laid on part of the sub-floor to provide a stable foundation for the marble surrounds of the fireplace.

The original floorboards were then re-laid on the sub-floor, and were then sanded, partly to match some new floorboards that had to be used on some parts of the floor and also to match the sanded floor in the Living Room. This floor will later be strained to the same colour as in the Living Room.

One important aspect of the work done at the house was the fact that the builders took pains to leave the site as clean as possible following each phase of the work. A good example is the back verandah that was a receptacle for many cubic metres of earth from below the floorboards and for much material to later be used in the renovation. All this earth was removed and the verandah was left ready for the next phase of the work.

March 2014

With a lot of the preparatory work done in the Dining Room, it became a bit of a storage room in the New Year, with insulation batts and timber stored there for a while (awaiting new homes). Actually the timber was returned because the very short lengths were not what was ordered. Above the timber, you can see the start of the suspended ceiling hangers starting to appear, while all the wallpaper has been stripped from the walls in preparation for the painting at a later stage.

May 2014

Not much happened in the Dining Room in April and May as attention shifted to the upper floors. Some more piping and ductwork was installed for the heaters and VMC system. One of the advantages of installing a doubled wall became clear, as it hid a variety of copper pipes, electrical cabling and plastic conduits, and also allowed instructions and dimensions to be written on the wall, knowing that it was all going to be covered in the future by the doubled wall. Will make interesting reading for future archeologists. Just no one mention the elephant in the room!!

June 2014

With lots of work being finished off on the upper floors, attention is now returning to the lower floors, preparing them for plastering and painting. One laborious task in the Dining Room has been the removal of all the raised wood panelling from the lower portion of the walls. The wall will now be sanded back and prepared for painting (or in some cases, wall doubling), while the timber panelling will be stripped back and re-painted and then finally replaced on the newly painted walls to restore the appearance of the dado walls.

July 2014

The Dining Room will be one of the rooms that will not be usable during the band tour. Instead it will be used as a storage room for materials that have yet to find their final home. However, discoveries continue to be made. While removing a large mirror above the fireplace, an area of wallpapered wall was revealed. Presumably, it has been hidden from the time that the mirror was installed. While it may not be possible to save this wallpaper (which has a fabric feel to it), the detail in the pattern is very interesting and may yet find a place in the renovated Maison de la Rose.