Can't get the sofa in? Just remove a wall. Sensible.
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One of the very first things I decided to do after taking possession of my new purchase was start to tear it apart. I picked up the keys and now it has one wall less than it did when I signed the papers.
The problem was that I couldn’t get my beloved sofa in the living room. The angles are wrong and the sofa’s too big, so it won’t go through the doors despite being taken to pieces. Rather than take the easy way out and buy a new sofa that would fit, I decided to take the wall between the hallway/stairs and living room down.Sensible.
Now in my defence I was planning on pulling down this wall down at some point anyway. It wasn’t all about getting the sofa into the living room - I want to make the ground floor flow better. Because the house isn’t huge I think that removing some of the internal walls is going to make it a much more useful space. So it seemed like a good idea to get on with it so that I would at least have something to sit on in the middle of my new building site.
The wall was constructed of plasterboard and the original Victorian wooden tongue and groove (T&G), and was made up of a doorway from the hall into the living room and a three quarter height sloped wall that followed the run of the stairs. I wish I had a picture to show you but sadly early pics were lost after an accident with tea and a laptop. To make it clearer, originally there would have been a cupboard under the stairs, but a previous owner had removed this and at the same time the newel post required to stiffen the stairs had been cut off.
I brought in an electrician to disconnect the light switches, as electricity and me really don’t mix. I had also consulted with a Structural Engineer previously to ensure the wall was non load bearing. I really didn’t want the house to fall down on the second day I owned it.
With all this in order I felt fairly confident that I would be able to knock the wall down on my own. Armed with a pneumatic air chisel (these are possibly the best tools in the world ever and much more fun than they should be), a sledgehammer and some strong friends I set to work.
I started by using the air chisel to remove the sheets of plasterboard from the walls and underside of the stairs. This exposed the treads of the stairs and the T&G wood panelling underneath. As the strips of tongue and groove were attached to the outside of the stairs the plasterboard on the other side of the wall needed to be removed before the wood could be taken down. Once again the air chisel came into play, and then the T&G panelling was removed by levering the strips out with a crowbar and bit of brute force.
The remaining section of wall with the door set into it was removed by running the air chisel across the joins with the ceiling and the remaining wall before knocking the panel out.
The entire wall was taken down in about an hour and a half, and as soon as it was down I could see that I had done the right thing. The living room looks twice it’s previous size and is so much more light and airy. I wasn’t counting on the amount of finishing that will need to be done to the room though. The corner between the living room wall and the hallway is ragged and there is a large hole in the hallway ceiling, which will need plastering up. The stairs are going to need re-cladding and the plaster under the stairs is going to need a patch up as well.
Apart from that, I have to confess that I made a couple of other mistakes. I seriously underestimated the amount of time it would take to clear the rubble from the site, and this part was the least fun part. I also neglected to lay down dustsheets before starting, as although there wasn’t anything to protect from the dust they would have made clearing up afterwards much easier. Although I made sure everyone here was wearing eye protection and gloves, I completely forgot to put my work boots on and of course the T&G was stuffed full of old nails. Being me I trod on a nail that went straight through my trainers and into my foot, so I needed tetanus boosters. Now I know that PPE is important!
But most importantly, my sofa is in my living room and I am sitting on it, so it’s not all that bad really.
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Heh, removing a wall is nothing. We had to remove a window frame, hoist up a couch to the second floor, and then replace the frame.
over a year ago by Freddym
We're NEVER moving.
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