remove the wallpaper.. remove the wall..

So I had put on my list of not resolutions,  to ‘make living room pleasant’ but also stated that we inevitably found other problems with each bit of work we do.  Stripping wall paper, in the living room, we find that it has been stuck to hardboard, attached to the wall.  The question was why? 

We stopped work yesterday debating various reasons and decided more than likely the lime plaster was ruined by the damp we have everywhere, and as the previous owner was fond of a ‘quick fix’ this was probably it.

This evening we were more than relieved to find, when removing the board, only a lime plaster wall and some very old looking wall paper.  Yay! we can deal with that - no problem…

I took a picture for history’s sake, as we would be taking it down, but we were much more cheerful.

Until we removed the next bit of board, lower down. At first it just looked like the plaster was shot, then it looked like there was no plaster.  OK, we can sort that.

but….

Then we got a torch.  Inside we can see that its a lath and rubble wall, with timber uprights … or at least what was once timber uprights  now just yellow spongey dust (ah the joys of damp and death watch beetle) . You can see the ‘timber’  to the left of the cavity in the last picture, looking not very supportive at all..  Which is a pity.. since this IS a supporting wall, holding up the joists to both bedrooms above.  With the torch we can see the laths on the other side of the wall!

Looks like we might be having a slight change of plan from one of redecoration to reconstruction, as clearly we need a new wall..(and the building regs etc that go with that …joy…).

Perhaps I should change that not-resolution from ‘make living room pleasant’ to ‘make supporting wall safe’