Lounge

Table of Contents

Renovation Plan

Nothing structural is planned but the interior needs to be repaired and updated.

• Replace ducted oil heating with ground-sourced HVAC ducted heating/cooling system.

• Remove carpet and restore exposed floor boards.

• Repair and restore all windows.

• Replace exterior door.

• Install skirting boards to replace the odd-sized quarter-round mouldings currently in place.

• Update light fittings.

• Update décor.

• Interior repainting.

• Remove library shelves.

• Pull up non-original mismatched floor boards and replace with best boards from other rooms.

• Sand and finish floor boards.

• Strip all paint from beams and finish as natural timber.

• Repair and repaint vaulted ceiling.

• Replace wall render on all walls to level and smooth in traditional lime render.

• Walls to be lime washed to allow lime render and stone walls to breath again.

Original flooring is 130x24mm T&G hardwood timber, possibly Tallowood. This is a very dense and hard wood. Floors are very worn in places but don't appear to have been sanded since originally laid. Various access points have been roughly cut into the flooring, at least one per room, for installation of the ducted oil heating. It was clearly intended that carpet would be laid to hide this work. It appears that no effort was made to lay ground sheets when repainting, for the same reason. Gaps in the flooring were roughly filled with a plastering filler.

Originally the most important room in the building, the classroom, includes a large open fireplace that is still operational. Access was originally only via an external doorway and later also via an internal doorway from the study, added after 1945 according to the recollection of an ex-pupil who saw the room recently. Four large double-hung sash windows provide light and views to the south, west and north. The 15 foot high vaulted ceiling is lined with painted timber paneling, with exposed tie beams extending across the width of the room. The uneven stone internal wall surfaces have been roughly rendered with lime render and then painted, with acrylic paint used in later coats. There are extensive library shelves covering all of the wall separating this room from the rest of the residence.

Old wall-to-wall carpet

The bulk of the wall-to-wall carpet and foam underlay was well past it's useful life and was removed as my very first inside task, so that I could see exactly what I was dealing with underneath.

Tie beams

Removing the bookshelves

Flooring

Walls

Windows