Unterkonstruktion

Been a relatively slow couple of weeks, but progress is being made on the walls that will be clad with wood and/or plasterboard. The reason it's slow going might be apparent from the photos below, as the existing walls, made of oak posts, beams and filled with wattle and daub, are fairly crooked and uneven. This means planeing lots of shims to get a vertical and even plane

First, the kitchen. This needs to be well supported, as kitchen units will hang here. Using two of the posts as "null", new wood was set in to make a frame between them, extending across the door. There's a 6-8cm difference in depth in some cases, and the existing door frame was tilted quite a bit more than it looked. We'll put 22mm thick OSB sheets on this wall, which will then be covered with plasterboard. The OSB will be more secure for hanging units, and give the walls a more solid feel than just plasterboard, which I hate!

This will not fall down! Ready for wiring.

New wood is vertical, old posts not!

On the other side of the same wall, I've gone for laths that are not so thick to save some space. It's a bit of a problem, as there's not a lot to secure the laths on, but it won't have to support to much weight. The hole through the wall, visible in the middle of the photo, will become a cubby hole to house the distributor for the wall heating system on this level. The post running into the wall will be chainsawed off to make this into a doorway going from the hall to give access to a bedroom and the small bathroom on this level.

In the same area, I've put laths in to level the floor, and bring the joists up to the same level as those in the hall. This is our benchmark level for this floor, so whatever we choose for flooring, the lebvel ill be the same throughout.

And looking up from the floor in this new hallway, the frame for the bathroom wall is complete.

There's always room for a bit of plastering when you run out of material, so part of what i like to refer to as the TV wall got a base coat. I've left space on the left for an idea for a decorative feature. The wall dips in by a few cm here, so I was considering sticking fake bricks onto the lower part, then partially plastering over them to make it look like the wall is made of brick, with parts of plaster cut out to show them. On the right, I'd like to stick in an oak post to break the wall up, and break up an otherwise boring stretch of flat wall. We'll see.

Next tasks: more under-construction on the small bathroom walls, bricking up the old doorway and levelling the joists in the living room.