Pulling down the walls
Well, I had a fine gig last night, opening for the superb Shane Simpson and Lynne Hanson. Sadly, it's been a slow summer all around in the bars of the Big Smoke, so a whole lot of people didn't get to see a superb guitarist and songwriter and a very fine rythm player and harmony singer in action. If you get a chance, Shane's back for the Blues Festival this coming weekend. Well worth poking your head out of a hobbit hole for.
Meanwhile, here in renovationville, I had an AMAZING find today. I moved on from the dining room floor- now stripped to the original floorboards- to the arched wall between living and dining room, which I was bound and determined to destroy. With more than my usual foresight, I first configured a system of tarps and fans to create negative air pressure in the dining room- i.e. air would get sucked in from the hall, kitchen and living room rather than the other way around, and then blown out the small window into the alley. It worked great, to the relief of my lungs, musical instruments, furniture etc. Air in, dust out.
The AMAZING thing was, that when I pulled the drywall off around the arch, I found another arch- an original one. I'll spare you the Sherlock Holmes analysis, but the gist of it is that the room my grandmother had lived in when I was a kid had actually been created by blocking in what was once a very high, round arch between living and dining room. I had always wondered why there was a bedroom there- now I understand, it wasn't original. In fact it looks like it was made and unmade within maybe a 30 year period.
Which means that the rough double-45 degree arch with a flat top that I disliked so much was actually hanging out of a higher, much lovelier arch. So I've removed the drywall as well as the structure of the newer arch, exposing an arch of studs and laths, very rustic but the arc it describes is fantastic. I'm not taking any more of it off- even if I peel off the laths it will lose the appeal. Anyway the more wood the better.
Meanwhile, over a smaller double-45 degree flat-top arch that came in from the hall to the dining room, I removed the angles and found a straight section of wall that hangs down about 2 feet from the ceiling. On the dining room side I removed the wallboard; on the hall side, there are laths with drywall mounted against them. However, all the plaster has been removed, presumably when my uncle hung the drywall, so the wall actually looks pretty cool from the dining room side. You're looking through at two bare studs with clean laths behind them, no plaster, and then the inside surface of the wallboard hanging on the hall side of the wall.
At this point, my plan is to continue removing drywall into the hall side of the living room, and probably remove the laths on that wall, as well. That would leave me with the same dimensions for the hallway as what it currently occupies, but would open the living room slightly and create an easy built-in shelf as high and as long as the wall. Meanwhile the laths (the inside of the laths on the hall side, looking at it from the living room) will create good texture and colour. The more wood the better. Did I say that already?
A further extension of this same principle would be to remove the drywall from both sides of the hall wall, but leave the laths on one side. I may very well end up doing that in the end, I'm just thinking a lot about every step before proceeding because once the undoing is done, it can't be redone. Something I've learned the hard way. Another thing I've learned: don't make a mess in one day that takes more than two hours to clean up. Try applying that to the rest of your life. Good luck.
Meanwhile, here in renovationville, I had an AMAZING find today. I moved on from the dining room floor- now stripped to the original floorboards- to the arched wall between living and dining room, which I was bound and determined to destroy. With more than my usual foresight, I first configured a system of tarps and fans to create negative air pressure in the dining room- i.e. air would get sucked in from the hall, kitchen and living room rather than the other way around, and then blown out the small window into the alley. It worked great, to the relief of my lungs, musical instruments, furniture etc. Air in, dust out.
The AMAZING thing was, that when I pulled the drywall off around the arch, I found another arch- an original one. I'll spare you the Sherlock Holmes analysis, but the gist of it is that the room my grandmother had lived in when I was a kid had actually been created by blocking in what was once a very high, round arch between living and dining room. I had always wondered why there was a bedroom there- now I understand, it wasn't original. In fact it looks like it was made and unmade within maybe a 30 year period.
Which means that the rough double-45 degree arch with a flat top that I disliked so much was actually hanging out of a higher, much lovelier arch. So I've removed the drywall as well as the structure of the newer arch, exposing an arch of studs and laths, very rustic but the arc it describes is fantastic. I'm not taking any more of it off- even if I peel off the laths it will lose the appeal. Anyway the more wood the better.
Meanwhile, over a smaller double-45 degree flat-top arch that came in from the hall to the dining room, I removed the angles and found a straight section of wall that hangs down about 2 feet from the ceiling. On the dining room side I removed the wallboard; on the hall side, there are laths with drywall mounted against them. However, all the plaster has been removed, presumably when my uncle hung the drywall, so the wall actually looks pretty cool from the dining room side. You're looking through at two bare studs with clean laths behind them, no plaster, and then the inside surface of the wallboard hanging on the hall side of the wall.
At this point, my plan is to continue removing drywall into the hall side of the living room, and probably remove the laths on that wall, as well. That would leave me with the same dimensions for the hallway as what it currently occupies, but would open the living room slightly and create an easy built-in shelf as high and as long as the wall. Meanwhile the laths (the inside of the laths on the hall side, looking at it from the living room) will create good texture and colour. The more wood the better. Did I say that already?
A further extension of this same principle would be to remove the drywall from both sides of the hall wall, but leave the laths on one side. I may very well end up doing that in the end, I'm just thinking a lot about every step before proceeding because once the undoing is done, it can't be redone. Something I've learned the hard way. Another thing I've learned: don't make a mess in one day that takes more than two hours to clean up. Try applying that to the rest of your life. Good luck.
Labels: Lynne Hanson, renovations, Shane Simpson
posted by David Newland at 20.7.03
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