The Stairwell from Hell

Day 37 - October 16th

It's time for some inside work - something Anne and I have been dreading! We were about to descend into a world of concrete dust, grit and grime and holes in the walls and ceilings that you could literally squeeze your whole body through. First...the staircase......

The original staircase was fine - except that the treads were very narrow and varied in width and slope, there was not enough headroom and anyone over 180cm tall knocked their noodle every time they descended the stairs, and they were so far from complying with the building codes of today that it wasn't funny.

The solution was arrived at by Nadine, our designer and by us independently. When Nadine presented her idea to us, we proudly announced that we had also come up with the same idea! The solution was dead simple and damned hard to do.

You simply cut out a part of the concrete floor to open up the stairwell and give more headroom and redesign the stairs to have additional winder treads (those that make the stairs change direction) at the bottom and wider treads as the staircase climbs up beside the wall - you'll probably understand better when you see the final photos as the new staircase isn't built yet!

But it's not quite that simple - to make this happen you have to:

• remove some of the walls in the lounge room
• cut the current linen cupboard in half
• cut the wardrobe in the office/study/third bedroom down in size
• cut in a new doorway into said bedroom from what is now the passageway to the back door
• seal up the original doorway into the bedroom
• connect the petrol driven concrete saw to the garden hose and generally flood the upstairs bathroom, the stairwell , the garage and the second bedroom in the flat - oh.. and cause the sprayed-on finish to the downstairs ceiling to detach from the ceiling thereby necessitating the installation of a new gyprock ceiling - all at additional expense, I suppose.

The remains of the linen cupboard - love the holes in the ceiling!





The new doorway into the third bedroom. Our office is a tad more airy than before as the window in the outside wall is also missing and temporarily replaced with plywood sheets and building paper.

Now comes the time for the floor to be cut and the flooding to begin. Chris does his very best to shield us from the inevitable mess - he uses an extractor fan and flexible ducting to whisk away the dust and he wraps the entire are in a huge plastic sheet.

But...there's no escaping the water and the concrete slurry that the cutter generates.

The old banister and hand rail lying in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. When the carpet came off the steps, it revealed just how dodgy the staircase actually was. 

The destruction zone in preparation for the floor to be cut. Ground zero....

The floor took nearly 4 hours to cut and a further 3 hours of jack-hammering to remove the concrete and the metal sheeting that the concrete slab had been poured on top of.

The result - a bigger stairwell.

Note the flooding down below. We also decided to jack-hammer some of the bricks out (right hand side of steps) to open up the stairs and create more light.

That's the beauty of doing a reno and having a great builder - spur of the moment improvements.

Just don't ask about the plumber's adhoc decision to relocate the vanity in the new rear bathroom meaning we'd have to glue the vanity mirror to the inside of a window to be of any use!

The Front Balcony Extension

Day 35 - October 14th

The steel beam that will support the upper level floor has to be winched up into position at the top of the two steel columns and bolted in position. Chris uses a nifty little hydraulic lifter to raise up the 150kg beam and soon we are underway with the top balcony.


The massive steel beam bolted in place at the top of the square steel columns.



Chris has cut the front of the existing verandah off with the concrete saw to give a flush edge and expose the 150mm concrete slab that is the upper level's floor. Two courses of bricks also come off across the front to create a bearing surface for the floor joists.

A timber support beam is then bolted to the edge of the slab and fixed with long bolts that are chemically bonded into the concrete slab. It's amazing how construction technology has advanced since the last major building work I did some 30 years ago!

Next, the floor joists go in.


















After they're all secured in place, the flooring goes down. It's a brand new product called INEX - like the old compressed fibre cement sheets but lighter, stronger and the sheets have a tongue and groove system to make the joints rigid.  

Pretty soon the floor is all but laid and we have the makings of our newly extended front deck.

The Front Lower Deck

Day 31 - October 10th 2014

Work has ceased out the back! The floor, frame and roof trusses are up and it's now time to focus on the front of the place - and what a mess this will create!

First Chris and McCallister (his apprentice) dig the holes for the footings.





The hollow square steel section for the two main upright columns and the C-section steel beam to hold the upper level floor of the balcony are lying on the grass.


Next the left and right footings are poured ready for the uprights.

The upper level balcony railing disappears and Chris attacks the concrete with the huge concrete cutting saw.

The lovely fluted concrete columns also get a trim and begrudgingly, we agree that they will have to go as part of the reno. So sad!

The mess from the saw is everywhere as the concrete dust and water slurry splashes over everything - especially the large glass panels of the sliding doors and the big windows of the flat downstairs.

Next, the bricks below the windows of the flat are removed to expose the interior floor level. This leaves a hole in the wall about 25cm x 10cm. From inside the flat you can see daylight through it but Chris solves the problem by stuffing an empty cement bag in the opening. Voila - no more daylight.

The steel uprights are bolted to the footings and the joists are attached to give a solid base for the decking that will go on later.

All ready for the next stage which will be raising the main steel cross beam up to the top of the support columns.

You can see the place where the bricks once were below the windows and the solid concrete slurry coating to the front window in this photo.

One steel column is also visible at the eastern end of the deck joists.

  

The New Lounge/Entertaining Room

A note to readers of this blog - the day counter I'm using for this reno is in actual calendar days from the start date of 10th September 2014 - not days that the builders are here on site as they don't work on weekends of public holidays. 

Day 22 - October 1st 2014

Well the floor is down for the extension at the rear of the house. Yay! Now the wall frames go up.

Eastern, southern and internal wall frames are up.

Next will be the western wall frame and the header above the sliding doorway.

Now the roof trusses go on.

And that's the frame and roof done for the back room extension until the time comes to tie the new roof into the existing roof and the new colorbond roof goes on.

Unfortunately to get the western wall up, the window to our study had to go. The plywood sheeting doesn't give much of a view of the backyard anymore!