Demolish & Dig Out Rear Wall
Demolish & Dig Out Rear Wall
From the early days of the build, our builder Donald was able to see the fabric of the building and anticipate where we might find archways, stone lintels and hidden features way before we could and he had one idea which we were quite excited about. Looking at the wall between the main hall and the lean-to pantry area there is an archway which at some point would have been the main entrance to the barn. He could see how if we dropped the rear wall we could have a clear view of the field behind. We loved the idea of dropping the rear wall, if not the one between.
With the front wall pointed and needing a bit of time to get a grip on the finances, we decide to make a start on the rear wall. I quite like the qwerky little window which tilts inwards and we already have the lintel in place from when we did the roofing, so we’re safe to start knocking the stones out but it’s no mean feat. These walls are around 2 feet thick and have been there for hundreds of years so although some come away fairly easily there are some throughs (huge stones which go all of the way through) which take some serious work.
Before long the bottom of the ladders are over a three feet deep in rubble so I make a start on carting out the spoil and let an expert (Rachel) take over for a while. This sort of thing is right up Rachel’s street, being able to see the change straight away, safe in the knowledge she probably won’t have to clean up. She’s straight into it swinging the lump hammer like a pro. When Rach tires, even the kids have a go and they’re PPE’d up and climbing the ladder to tackle some of the smaller stones.
It’s fair to say by the end of the day we’ve all had a good crack at it and we’ve brought the wall to half of it’s original height. The thickness of the wall means we’re losing a good foot out of the potential seating area so we might take some of it lower if we can and build in a bit of a bench seat to one half and leave the other half facing the outside if we can make it solid enough.
That plan flies out of the window pretty much straight away though as Donald pops around to see how we’re getting on and we have a new plan. If we take the wall down to below ground level, we can build it back up at half-thickness and build up the floor level so it’s not such a drop when you go in meaning we’d have a nice flat base and although the wall from the field would be high enough to prevent animals from popping in, the raised heigh on the inside means we wouldn’t have an obstructed view. Another benefit is the additional floorspace which we’d create means we’d have enough space to site a small table and reuse the throughs as coping stones on top of the new wall. We’re sold on the idea.
It’s starting to look like the sign of a good builder isn’t just about being able to build stuff but to coax you towards making better decisions and we’re pretty happy with this one. Donald still thinks we should pull the internal wall out between the hall and the outside area but for now at least, we’re happy with the plan.
We’ve made a bit of a mess though so it’s time to get the rubble and feed sacks out (animal feed sacks are 10x better than rubble sacks by the way, I have no idea why farmers don’t just re-sell these as the shop-bought rubble bags hold about half of the weight before breaking! Anyway, rant over!) and get the area around the hall cleared of any bits of rubble. John the farmer who has the field has been a massive help so we’re keen to make sure we don’t leave anything which might damage his equipment when he cuts the grass and (so far) we seem to be keeping on top of it. Rach has managed to get a pic of me at this point doing my very best diet-coke-break impression. Probably not quite every womans dream but you’ve got to work with what you’ve got!
Checking out their handywork, me and the kids take a bit of a break on the wall, watching the trees sway in the distance, very happy with the decision to take out the wall.