The wall between the new kitchen and the living room involved going through the original random rubble stone wall which was 1 metre thick.
We started using the strong boys to corbel the opening, we also put the 150mm square oak beams in on the outer face- this ended up being a mistake because the door way needed up needing to be further right!
We took 20 stones out dropping them on spare insulation to cushion the falls, and protect the concrete floor.
I did most of the job on my own with some help from James- it took about 2 weeks.
Just one more to do!
Corbelling the opening using a strong boy.
Really big stones
Taking out the random rubble inner skin- note the strong boy
You can see the original beam position on the outer wall.
Big stones still to drop- how did they put them up in the first place?
So now you can see the the new lintels are in the wrong place with one quite big stone on the right, this was left until the clockwork piers were built.
Then we found big foundations stones- fortunately we managed to move the big one - then there was just one left in the way which we couldn't move.
The big stone being moved
Quite big
The hole foundation concreted and ready for the piers to be built
Skill saw and a very good diamond blade ready to cut back the stone which was in the way
Cutting under way
not so easy so cut fingers of granite to
Nearly done
It didn't look good at this stage
Blockwork piers - outer face which will stay as feature stone ready to be stone faced
Piers built- now need to move the lintels, stone facing completed
Amazing the stone work held when we removed the lintel. We had to lower the stone out and then down a ladder slope
Stone lowering
Nearly finished - a new doorway
