Plaster Stripped

The messy job of stripping the plaster from the old bedroom was completed about 10 days ago (sorry about the delayed update !).

There are a couple of features of interest to note :

1. Firstly, a small bricked up fireplace, which was (and probably will be again) behind the radiator. We knew it must be there simply by counting the chimney pots, but it is nice to uncover it, even if only temporarily.


2. A dodgy electrical arrangement with a diagonal cable from the switch to the light fitting. I am not sure if it is written into the regulations, or just "good practice", but cables are supposed to either rise from the floor, or drop from the ceiling, to switches and fittings - always vertical so that you know where not to drill holes and knock in nails.


3. Note how the chimney breast is made of brick, despite the rest of the room being rouble-stone. The brick merges into the stone part way across the alcove. You can see this again in the window reveals :

I guess around the windows it is to make the plastering easier. Not so sure about the reasoning behind the chimney breast though. The house was built in 1901 so import of bricks from outside the local area was probably quite common. There are a lot of brick built Victorian and Edwardian houses in Stroud, presumably constructed after the railway and canal came to town.

The other window is a much rougher construction :

The frame from an old built-in wardrobe is still in place. I was going to save it, but probably won't now that most of it has gone. It was quite flimsy (hardboard and thin ply) so I will get the walls all freshly plastered and either rebuild or put free-standing furniture in it's place.

Note that I have left the skirting boards on the wall. These are attached to battens - there is no plaster behind them, so it makes sense to leave them in place. The plasterer came round today to scope the job, and he is happy to plaster down to the skirtings. Hopefully it will be done in a couple of weeks time.