Working on the atelier

Atelier? It will be called the "utility room" for want of any better ideas.

This is the last of the rooms in the barn that still needs to be fitted out. Right now it has a washing machine and a fridge and a load of junk piled on the floor (or it did a few days ago). The idea is to install a sink and worktop with some storage space.

Part of the problem with this room is that it is at the end of the barn where the walls were built directly onto the bedrock. So despite having a step up into the room from the hall, the "uphill" outside walls had bits of rocks projecting through them, and no depth of concrete. So this time last year I poured a concrete slab against the wall to raise the floor sufficiently to bury the electricity cables etc, and give a flat surface. It looked like this in January 2010:



I started this time by painting the walls and ceilings - until I ran out of paint - and installing a proper light fitting. I didn't want to paint round the light fitting. So the ceiling is done and the walls still need work, though I have deliberately left some parts only thinly painted as tiles don't stick very well to paint. This was how the corner of the room looked when I put the paint brush down (on top of the washing machine):



And then for the last few days I've been making the framework for the worksurface and cupboards and drawers. The object is to have a sink that is reasonably low down: with the plinth it would have been three or four inches higher than a normal sink if I had made a worksurface continuously level with the top of the washing machine. So the worksurface will have a dropped centre section to give the sink a reasonable height.

The picture below shows how far I have got so far. The framework is only partially constructed: much of the left hand side remains to be done, as well as the part below the sink. There will be a "false front" made of good new oak to hold the doors and provide an edge for the shelves (which will go left and right of the sink): the framework will hold it all up, and it should be solid as I've been using reclaimed oak from the barn floor, a hundred years old and well seasoned. Sometimes a little worm eaten, but I have plenty and I've been able to select the best bits.

The worksurfaces will be tiled. The width (front to back) of the worksurface is too big for a standard laminate worktop, and it is also about four inches wider at the left than at the right. Tiling will let me make sure the waterproof surface goes right to the wall. But planning for tiles has made measuring the dimensions of the worksurface very tricky, as I want all the joints in the tiles to match, and that means allowing for the thickness of a tile plus cement in various places. I hope I've got it right. I will find out in due course.



There will also be an oak edge to the worksurface at the front, over the washing machine and below the sink, but not where the upper level drops down to the sink level.

It has all taken a long time as none of the walls are quite straight, nor indeed are they even vertical or square to each other. As a result almost every bit of framework I've put in so far has had to be individually tailored to the walls. A lot of this is done by scribing: you run a pencil with its long edge against the wall, and its point on the wood pushed as far as possible against the wall. Then you cut back to the pencil line (which follows the curves of the wall) with either a handsaw, or a jigsaw, or a sander (or in one case a router). But the end result is woodwork with no gaps up against the walls.

Putting in the windows

Our builders made a series of round windows on the upper floor, and we had coloured glass made to fit them with a lead surround. Two of the windows are etched with the "Lessal" pattern. Regrettably the builders weren't entirely au fait with the concept of circularity, so we had to have the glass cut to the shapes that we thought they had made the window openings. Even then, the glass didn't fit. So the first task was to chip away the brick to get the openings about right. That took a while, and trying to avoid dropping the glass each time it was offered up to the opening was a bit worrying.

In the end I managed not to break the first window. This is the side where I cut the bricks to fit, but the mortar covers the cut edges, more or less. I used a bit of colourant in the mortar which otherwise would have been white (almost).



The other picture was taken from the other side of the wall (inside the bathroom) without the flash and shows how the sunshine comes through the window. That was the effect we were aiming for. The sun doesn't fall directly on the window at this time of year but it's good enough to give a fair impression.



It wasn't easy to get the mortar smooth. It needed quite a lot of going over with a sponge. That unfortunately showed up a basic error with the dye. It should have been dissolved in the water I mixed the mortar with. Instead it went in afterwards, and little bits of it were undissolved and produced something of a smear when wiped over.

The next one will be better. Oh yes.