Progress - Lightwell

November 2013

The first task in the Lightwell on the Ground Floor (the old Laundry) was to remove all the laundry appliances and also the shower that had been installed for the use of the aged mother. All the plumbing and wiring was removed. Also, an old toilet room fronting onto the Lightwell was cleared out, leaving Nico with no throne to sit upon. This room will later be reduced in size (to enable the Toilet facing the hallway to be enlarged), and converted into a services cabinet, containing plumbing, sewerage pipes and electrical cables.

The services shaft will extend across all floors, running up through the rooms which were previously the public toilet on each floor. On the 1st Floor, the front of this room (nearest the Foyer) will be a Linen Closet, with the Services Cabinet in the back section. On the 2nd Floor, there will still be a toilet, and the services will run through a space at the side of the room. Looking up from the ground floor, at right, clearly shows the holes on each floor which will form the shaft for the Services cabinet.

March 2014

With plumbing and waste water connections being made on the upper floors, it was time to start making plans for taking the water away on the ground floor. The Services Shaft at the rear of the existing toilets and the Lightwell were going to play a major role in this process. The outfall from the ensuites and toilets on the upper floors will come down via pipes in the Services Shaft and via pipes in the corner of the Lightwell. When they reach the Ground Floor, the toilet waste will be directed to the sewerage pipes running to Rue Gambetta, while the wastewater will go through a new pipeline out to the Quai Antoine Hebrard frontage. The pipes and trenches below show the beginning of this latter system under the floors of the Lightwell and the Storeroom.

Another job in March was removing the back wall of the two existing toilets (off the Lightwell and the Hallway) in preparation for installing a new wall between the enlarged Hallway Toilet and the new Services Cabinet off the Lightwell. Once the wall was removed, the photo at left below looks through from the Lightwell to the Hallway, while the photo on the right looks from the Hallway to the Lightwell.

July 2014

The waste water from the upper floor showers etc will run down both sides of the house. On the western wall, the waste water will be gathered into pipes running through the Cellar, and then out into a pit on Rue Gambetta. On the eastern wall, the waste water will run though special pipes installed in the wall cavity near the Living Room chimney and also through boxed-in sections in the Lightwell. These will be gathered into a new pit and pipe network running under the Lightwell and the Storeroom and then though new drains out to the street on Quai Antoine Hebrard. The new concrete floor in the Lightwell and the pit in the Storeroom, with the temporary stormwater connection from the yet-to-be-demolished roof over the Lightwell, are shown below.

February 2015

Very little was done on the ground floor of the Lightwell in the past few months, as attention focussed on the top of the Lightwell and other parts of the renovation. Once the rendering of the Lightwell was finished, leaving the old timber lintels visible, the timber boxing was installed in two corners to hide wiring and plumbing from the 1st Floor Ensuites down to the ground. The travertine tiling used in the Kitchen will now be extended into the Lightwell.