This is the big ticket item. When we first inspected the house, I knew I didn’t like the wall between the kitchen and the lounge. Not only because this is not a very modern approach to house layouts, but also because it means you have an awkward toilet access next to the stove in the kitchen.
From a floor plan perspective, we just wanted to get rid of the wall entirely, maybe move the bathroom somewhere else in time, but regardless of the long term plan, that wall in red has to go.
We weren’t sure, but looking in the roof cavity, it kind of felt like that wall was structural. See that wooden beam on the left of the image, that’s holding up the ceiling in the lounge, and it’s resting on the kitchen wall.
This was soon confirmed by a structural engineer who agreed it was structural. He quotes us about $10k all up to remove the wall. About $5k for the design and permitting, and then $5k in a single day to put the steel in. I agreed!
The catch was we had to remove all the plaster, and get rid of the asbestos in the kitchen ceiling. Oh, did I forget to mention that? Yeah, we discovered asbestos in the kitchen ceiling. Goodie.
This kind of asbestos is generally safe if you don’t disturb it and in Australia you can remove 10 square metres by yourself, but we were definitely keen to get professionals in instead. The professionals removed the ceiling and asbestos and that left us with what I thought was a much nicer looking kitchen already!
The eagle eyed amongst you will notice some weird thin strips of wood on the walls behind the plaster board. When we spoke to the structural engineer, he said he wouldn’t be surprised if the kitchen had been an add-on, and certainly when we paid the council for plans from 1987, it certainly looked like the kitchen has been created as an add-on just then.
So we kind of expected to see weatherboard when we broke into the plaster for the first time. But this is not weatherboard, this is lathe.
What they would do is put these thin strips of wood down and then plaster over them. Of course nowadays we use gyprock board, and it looks like the previous owners hadn’t bothered to remove the lathe, they had removed the plaster and just left the lathe in place.
Well, all that plaster had to go.
So we started demolishing
And demolishing
And demolishing
And demolishing
Notice that on the top right there? Yes, that’s weatherboard! Proving effectively that at least the bathroom used to be the outside of the house. Also notice that dodgy looking door cavity? I reckon that was once the original back door!
The fun part out of the way it was time to let the professionals in to do their magic. The steel arrived pretty quickly and we had to arrange an electrician to remove all the power from the wall.
Please enjoy this video of the professionals at work.
And I have to say, I really like this so much more already.
We also now have a stockpile of beautiful old wood to do… something with.
