|
 | |  | |
Jack Hill moved with his wife and family to a house called Brookside at St Mary's, Chalford, Gloucestershire in 1962, and renovated it over a number of years.
When the roof over the main bedroom was taken off and then replaced I was working in Saudi Arabia, in Al Jubail, the new town, and the house was unoccupied but looked over by my neighbour Dave Braham.
He also acted as liaison with the builders, who were Cooper & Son from Hyde. It was suggested that a roof light be built into the slope overlooking the previously inaccessible gutter and this seemed like a good idea.
{I decided not to involve the planners as they would have wanted drawings and money and so on.} It meant that it was now possible to keep an eye on the moss and stuff which always formed on the rough surface.
I might add that I had in fact obtained an approval for a radical alteration to the roofs to eliminate the gutter and also make the tiny room over the staircase into a more sensible size. Cooper's price was much too high for that work and that is why we agreed to stay with the roof refit.
When I returned from Saudi, I was again out of work so decided to tackle the room in the roof now flooded with light from the Velux window. Again I bought second hand joists, treated everything with Rentokil and after a lot of effort managed to get them true enough to put down a T & G floor.
I now needed a means of accessing this space so did much demolition of a wall rising above the original wall of the house. I then discovered a blocked up window, which then became a doorway, and so I created stairs with open risers, first to the new floor level and then as a dog-leg up to the top attic level.
By this time I had been invited to go and work freelance with Frank Timothy in Gloucester, so was able to acquire vast quantities of ceiling panels taken down from an office block, one floor of which was being altered to a probation office.
So I spent much time and effort pinning these to the underside of rafters to give much-needed insulation. I got as far as building walls and doing electrics for the roof space but then lost impetus.
When I visited the house in January 2001, I saw that the stairs had been completely changed, and the insulation to the main roof had all been removed because the purchasers' mortgage company required that all timbers had to be re-treated for woodworm.
The small room with its very tiny Velux window had been made into another bedroom, and for light and air would have had problems satisfying the byelaws.
Just to illustrate how things can go awry, the new owners, the Parrys, decided to have a fire in a fireplace in the top attic, and were enjoying the glow when one of them went downstairs to find that the rest of the house was filled with smoke.
I had abandoned that fireplace, which had been in the maid's room, and the chimney had been scrapped but the builder had left a link with the Aga chimney so the smoke was rushing downhill to escape as the stack was sealed with the Aga steel flue. Oops again!
Tina Hewitt and her team did a lot of ripping out, including the hall draught lobby. They built a wall between the hall and lounge, put a solid door on the front so the hall is dark.
They abandoned the spring water and now have water at all levels so Richard has a shower where the old tank was located. The kitchen was given a new layout with the sink in the window and lots of pine-type cupboards.
The dining room linings were all taken away. The equipment in the utility room was all ripped out and not replaced.
Richard and Sheila, the present owners, have lots of new ideas, and so more alterations will ensue in 2001.
Continued ......
Jack Hill, St Alban's, Hertfordshire, 2002
| |  | |  |
To add a comment you must first login or join for free, up in the top left corner.
|
|
