With a little help from my friends

Saturday was a busy day. My "brother-in-law", Chris, had offered to help, so stayed overnight so we could get an "early" start. His friend, René offered to help, despite not knowing me from Adam, and a neighbour I had also never met, Jörg, offered to help. Another neighbour loaned us their tractor and trailer to dispose of stuff that had been lying around in the house for months, and the remaining plasterboards we planned to remove.

Having whittled away on a room-by-room basis on my own for the past few months, it's amazing what can be done with four guys and a bunch of wrecking bars. Pretty much all the remaining false ceilings and dry-lined walls were removed and disposed of, and there's now a mountain of laths piles outside the house. Working from 10:30 till 6pm in pretty hot weather, with a break for beef stew and a beer, we steamed through it!

René, Chris, Jörg and your's truely.

A great way to get to know people, and engage in community spirit, it was great, and the beers (some home made by me) and the home-made Wurst from Jörg from 6pm till 11pm were even better! Enough words, here are some summary pictures.

1st floor bedroom, before.

1st floor bedroom, now.

The apparent new door in the centre of the photo above is actually where the chimney was. While having a door straight into the kitchen from here might be nice, we'd lose valuable wall space for kitchen units. But look at all that lovely wood now exposed!

Main stairwell, July 2010.

And now.

Looking up, to the first floor.

There are always surprises to be found. I expected the ground floor wall in the stairwell to be stone, like the rest of walls at that level, but it was rebuilt some time with concrete blocks.

Looking down, to the 1st floor.

The landing on the second floor was also coated in plasterboard, and the guys did a neat job tidying it up and exposing the half-timbered construction (and a view through the dormer).

Landing on the 2nd floor.

2nd floor landing in the other direction, before.

2nd floor landing now.

The roof was also completed as far as possible on Friday. Lutz will return in a couple of weeks to put the roof tiles on.

The outside is looking a lot more promising than the inside!