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Renovation Project – Extension, Roof, Dining Room and Mezzanine
As you can see from the picture provided our property consists of the original stone built house with a modern extension wrapped around two sides to the left and rear of the house. The extension built onto the original house consists of two main areas. The first being a large open garage with double doors facing out to the front of the property, the second being a floored mezzanine area situated above the kitchen, shower room and toilet to the rear of the property. The modern extension also covered the hallway leading from the front and back of the house. The mezzanine also overlooked the entire garage.
I could see that the mezzanine had potential for creating two additional rooms. I wanted to extend the floored mezzanine area to cover half of the garage, and then partition off the garage with a stud wall to create a dining area with double doors facing out onto the rear garden. After tiling the floor I would then need to place a staircase to access the extended mezzanine above. The open mezzanine area looking down onto the new dining room would then need to be surrounded by sturdy balustrade supported and strengthened by uprights extended to the roof joists.
Before I could begin the project I would firstly have to replace the original corrugated roof, which was in a bad way. I contacted CBS as I had become friendly with the owner Heather. She put me in touch with an ex-pat French Roofer (Seret Registered), Phil, who had lived and worked in France for many years. His work was highly recommended by many. I contacted the roofer; Phil and he popped over during one of my numerous visits our property.
I could see from our first meeting that Phil knew his stuff. He was a very pleasant chap and after a brief discussion quickly understood the requirements for the Job. We walked around the Mezzanine discussing the materials required including the fitting and location of four Velux windows to provide adequate lighting for the proposed rooms. He also explained that he was fully booked for at least 6 months (good sign as he had a lot of work on) and suggested a date at the end of October. I agreed as this gave me time to raise the funds required. I also suggested that to reduce the cost I would labour for him. He agreed and said he would take this into consideration within his quotation for costing the project. The quote arrived back in England a week later. It wasn’t cheap but there again wasn’t excessive and I knew that the finished roof would be excellent. So I rang Phil, agreed with the costing and we set the date. After photocopying I posted the original copy of the quotation back to Phil with my signed agreement. We also agreed that I would post a cheque for all the materials two weeks prior to beginning the roof. Phil could then order and have the material delivered to site at the agreed date. Part of the agreement was that on completion I would pay the balance less 10%, which was, payable when I had returned to see and agree that work had been completed in good order. Standard practice in France.
Prior to beginning the roof I decided to return to France and extend the floored mezzanine and build the stud wall to partition the garage. On my arrival I bought the materials from my local builders merchants transported them back to the house and began.
Day one - Extending the mezzanine floor
Using a laser spirit level placed on the old mezzanine floor I marked a line to show the intended location of the new floor on the adjacent interior garage walls. From these marks it was then easy, taking into consideration the thickness of the flooring to mark the position of the joists. I drilled pilot holes into the breezeblocks (harder than UK Blocks) and using a hammer and bolster breaking out between the holes created an area to locate the joist’s ends. Placing one end of a joist within a newly created void for support I then raised and hung the other end using a bracket supplied by the builder’s merchants. After raising all joists I then finished off day 1 by setting and concreting the joists securely to the garage wall in preparation to laying the flooring on day two.
Day Two - Extending the mezzanine floor
Starting at the leading edge of the old floored mezzanine I then extended the flooring across the newly raised joists to the rear garage wall. The mezzanine surprisingly only took two days to complete. Job well done I thought.
The Stud wall
Using a plumb line positioned on the leading edge of the last joist (new mezzanine floor) I then marked the position of the leading edge for the stud wall frame. I was then able to mark out and build the frame across the garage taking into consideration the location of a door and the exterior measurements for the fitting.
Note – French doors come as a complete package including door fittings and door surround (one unit) so that all you have to do is build your frame around the lot, remove some securing pins and it’s ready to go. No door hanging required – Another great idea from the French.
With the stud wall frame completed I then covered with plasterboard on one side securing the plasterboard with screws countersunk to just below the surface. Moving to the other side I then insulated using paper backed fibreglass insulation cutting the sheets to size to fit in between the stud wall framework previously constructed. The second side was then covered with plasterboard to a similar way. Again a good job completed and very pleased with the end result especially the door hanging!!
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