Tons of work

We have been working hard last month. So hard in fact there was no time for blogging. What's done, up till now:
- Built a glass brick wall at the end of the entry hall, to avoid people at the front door looking all the way through our house
- Opened an old hidden side doorway between the entry hall and the living room; there will be a glass door there.
- Removed all existing dry plaster walls and ceiling in the first, small part of the living room
- That gave me the chance to get to the built-in window blinds on the road side of the living room - these are now cleaned and functional again
- Covered three walls and ceiling of above "first" living room in interlocking white wooden panels (Parador Clickboard - quite expensive, but well worth every penny!)
- Rebuilt the fourth wall of above room in Ytong closed cell cement blocks, including final plaster finish
- Redid most of the electricity in above room, including installation of new lights and move of our cable modem and routers to the basement, rerouting the network, coax (for television) and phone cables to the second part of the living room
- Painted above second and biggest living room area, walls and ceiling; part of the walls still have to be replastered.
- And, most gratifying up till now, together with my father we finally placed our staircase :)

As for the staircase, it was a DIY packet by Arkè. Don't be disappointed by the DIY aspect; it offers exceptional quality for it's price. I did make a nasty discovery though - the main support of the staircase would rest on a wooden beam under the floor (above the basement). This beam basically crumpled on touch, so I had to remove it and install a proper re-inforced concrete beam. No problem, only a very dirty job in an inaccessible location. And again three days delay before finalizing the staircase finetuning...

Now: pictures, more or less in order of appearance. Enjoy :)

Glass brick wall, still unfinished


















I already showed the first, small, part of living room, stripped down in the previous post. I'll add pPictures of how it looks now when all staircase parts are gone from there, and after it has been cleaned.

Crappy old staircase


















Shiny new staircase :)




























This is the beam I talked about above... 75 years ago this was massive oak. Yesterday only dust remained. Everywhere, by the way - I found wood dust in the shower, even before I washed.

There is more to tell and show, but it will have to wait. I want to finish a book tonight, and it's time for tea. Tomorrow the roof, and the fireplace.