Living Room: Original AppearanceWhen we moved into the house the living room was pretty much flat walls, papered and painted magnolia. There were beams visible in the ceiling but nowhere else. The floor was two different levels, indicating where the cottage had been split into two parts. The floor was carpeted with a brown carpet. It was clearly evident that the walls were suffering from a damp problem.
The living room has a chimney at one end and supported a working fireplace which we used from time to time.
The windows of the living room are all of lead casement construction supported in wooden frames.
We got permission to investigate the damp problems and soon discovered that the walls had all been lined with various combinations of hardboard and plaster board. In many places there was also a layer of plastic sheeting sandwiched behind the hardboard sheets. Removing the linings we discovered, slightly supprisingly, old brick walls rather than the timber framing we expected. This led us to conclude that the someone had removed the ground floor timber frame at some time in the past. Further research has lead us to conclude that this was done in the early 1800s. Once more of the linings were removed we discovered that many of the walls had been cement rendered in an attempt to stop damp problems. This was a bad thing to do as the bricks and lime mortar behind the render are old water permeable versions. The trapped water has then moved up the walls and damaged the softer plasters above the cement render.
It was clear that extensive damp repair work was required. We researched how the walls should be dealt with and how to deal with the damp. Information sheets from The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) helped with this greatly. We prepared and submitted a Listed Building Consent application and filed this with the council. Consent was granted in February 2002 and we started the work immediately. |
