July is for - breaking down the barriers

It's winter, and for me that means woolly beanie and gloves on the way to work in the morning, and wrapping up on the lounge in a blanket at night. Hopefully at least one of the cats will join me as a living hot water bottle. The real struggle for me comes when I have a day off - though it sounds exciting or relaxing, or both, often it isn't either. The house is just too cold during the day. I'm all for getting out in the garden to warm up, after taking the dog for a brisk walk (often with a bacon and egg roll stop) and maybe painting the walls for a while. But there's really only so much tea you can drink, and so many warm things to do.
The main issue is the house design, as there is only one window on the northern side (where all the sun is at this time of year). We are hoping to add another window in the bedroom  when time and budget allow, but for this season we have simply made better use of the one window we have.
Without boring you with the details of our strange house layout, let me just say that the living room is far too small and entirely the wrong shape, and along it runs an equally unusable and oddly shaped 'bedroom'. I'm sure you COULD fit a bed in there and my neighbour tells me that many years ago two young brothers shared it (a lesson in making do, if ever I needed one).

 

 

After taking a climb on the ladder into the roof, we confirmed that the wall separating these two 'rooms' wasn't loadbearing, and took to it with the nearest tools.

 

 My hammer hardly made a dent, and we discovered that it was composed of 2 layers, with thick gyprock covering horsehair plaster at the top, and plywood on the bottom half. Progress was slower than we expected, but the light that began streaming into the dingy living room was wonderful. Now at the centre of our house is a large, lightfilled room. 

Let there be light!

  Unfortunately, the walls and ceiling of the two rooms don't quite match up, so there is more work to be done disguising the join or at least making it presentable.

 

 

But we don't care. At the moment it's just nice to sit in a sunny room, have a read and a cup of tea. By summer we will hang some curtains to keep it cool, but that can wait. Before then there are floorboards to sand and polish and walls to paint. At least now our precious sunshine isn't wasted on that funny little side room, and we have a lounge room that can actually fit our lounge in it. How luxurious!

And here is a sneak peek of what we have planned for next Winter: