Well, That Was A Blast!
Do you remember the pictures, which crop up in documentaries from time to time, of a house being slowly consumed by sand? Those images most likely came from Kolmanskop, Namibia (here). It’s an old diamond mining town, long since abandoned in favour of more lucrative sites and now being reclaimed by the desert once more. Funny how these things have a way of coming back to you..
The sand blaster doesn’t clear up.
He says we pay him for blasting, not cleaning, and I suppose when he charges £100 per hour it is just as well.
It took us the best part of a day, shovelling and brushing, to get rid of all the sand. Bags and bags of it. But at least our time is free. And just look at those glorious ceiling beams. So much better than the black?
A beetle, sometime in the middle of the night, has taken a moon walk.
The bolstered defences in the bedroom did a reasonable job. The dust sheets, masking tape and planks (acting as weights) kept most of the dirt from flying up into the room. A dreadful sight underneath as we peeled it all back yesterday morning but nothing that couldn’t be hoovered up. What we didn’t reckon on was the inability of the carpet in Mike’s study and on the upstairs landing to provide an equivalent barrier. When I ventured that way during the blasting I didn’t just see dust in the air, I saw swirling clouds of dust in the air. Even the bathroom, which theoretically should be airtight being floor to ceiling tiled, ended up with a fine coating of black. In all our years of renovating we’ve never had to deal with this much mess.
There are different methods of blasting and I’ve investigated them all. The newest kid on the block, and the least abrasive, is dry ice blasting using pellets of frozen carbon dioxide. Its huge advantage is that it leaves virtually no mess. The carbon dioxide sublimates (from a solid to a gas) straight back into the atmosphere from whence it came. All that falls to the floor is the paint or whatever it is that the process has been commissioned to remove. The downside is that few companies offer it as yet (the nearest to us was 200 miles away) and it’s eye wateringly expensive. It’s also extremely noisy. At 125 decibels that would be the same as standing on the runway at Heathrow when a jumbo jet takes off. This is the point at which sound starts to cause actual physical pain. And with all the glass in the new bathroom directly above? No.
Next up in terms of kindness to beams is soda blasting, using bicarbonate of soda. It’s the method favoured by English Heritage but try finding anyone down here who will do it. We’ve held the project up for weeks while we tried. The drawback for contractors is that it’s slow. Our couple of small rooms would have taken three days. Every avenue we explored eventually closed down until all that was left was the nuclear option. Sand.
But as it turned out it’s actually been OK.
In the dining room too, some of the beams now uncovered are full of character. If a piece of wood has been around for hundreds of years it has almost inevitably had an encounter with woodworm. If a beam is then aggressively blasted the numerous worm tunnels near the surface of the wood break down, leaving a heavily pitted surface. There’s been a bit of that, but not too much.
In other places the result is not so great.
But we expected this. Even when these beams were black we could see that they’d previously had extra lengths of wood nailed to their sides.. box store pine skirting board as it turned out! And of course now the beams have been stripped these additions are a completely different colour. We can’t remove them as they could be adding strength. The white areas, between new wood and old most notably top left almost out of shot, are filler. My backstop solution is to apply a very light coat of limewash to each beam but I hate the thought of repainting the original wood. First I will try staining the pine to get a closer match to the old oak.
As well as the beams we had the floor bricks blasted, removing the red paint which previously covered them.
The original floor is now a thing of beauty. The disappointment perhaps is that the reclaimed bricks we added, to replace the strip of concrete at the left of the room, still look too ‘new’ in comparison to the old. There’s also more variation of colour in the old, which of course we couldn’t see underneath the paint. But it will be far less noticeable when the furniture is back. And after all, isn’t this how character in old buildings evolves? Successive generations all leave their mark and the visible record leaves the stories to be told.
And finally. The inglenooks.
The fireplace in the sitting room was given a quick once over by the blasting man and looks all the better for it. But it’s in the dining room that the real transformation has taken place..
Before
And after.
It needs some re-pointing, especially on the upper back wall, but that should only serve to brighten it up still further.
What we hadn’t realised, until the black paint was removed, is that the inglenook beam is studded with old nails.
Who put them there, how long ago and for what purpose? The mind boggles.
Wow! Apart from the sand it looks lovely. No need for any gritting of teeth now – well hopefully not in more ways than one!
The next job is almost as messy.. taking the ceiling down and replacing it. As well as the accumulated dust of years gone by there’s now an awful lot of sand up there!
I have so much admiration for your heroic efforts. It all looks wonderful – now! I love watching your progress – thank you very much for your blog posts – you are an inspiration!
Thank you for reading!
Writing the blog posts forces me to see the positives and the funny side in all of this. It’s all too easy to be weighed down by the constant mess and disruption.
The whole effort is mind-boggling
It’s become a monster. A time, money and sanity consuming monster.
I can’t imagine going through this process, but thank you so much for sharing it. It’s fascinating, and the results are so beautiful!
I can quite confidently say I wouldn’t do it the same way again. Sand blasting is never something you should attempt while living in a house! But with this stage done we can start to see how it’s all going to look and that’s encouraging!
One. Hundred. Pounds. An. Hour? £100???? An HOUR?? A hundred POUNDS???? I’m going for a sit down….
Dry ice blasting was almost double that. And that’s presumably without all the incidental expenses associated with travelling two hundred miles each way, maybe overnight stays. And fresh ice deliveries daily.. otherwise it would melt, if that’s what dry ice does. (Having just looked it up, it doesn’t melt. It just evaporates.)
You are brave folks!
It gets to the point where there is already so much mess a little more doesn’t hurt. In this case I underestimated the ‘little’.
That floor is stunning. Definitely worth all the work…..and money! X
Thanks Em. Maybe by September we’ll be rid of all the sand. Maybe!
Fabulous! Hope all the sand can be used somewhere useful.
I did suggest using it in the mortar for the outside terracing work but apparently it’s not suitable. There’s an old pond out in the woodland we’re in the process of filling up. It’s gone in there.
Wow Jessica, you really need to love the place to go through all this (and have very deep pockets I suspect, or a kind bank manager – actually scrap the last bit, the bank managers have probably gone the same way as the banks). It is looking lovely. In retrospect would you have done this work before the bathroom?
Emphatically Yes to your last question.
A plumber once told me that you should always start at the top of a house and work down, given that gravity has the effect of migrating most problems downwards. Certainly when we had the major leak a few weeks back the water did at least fall into an empty room. But it doesn’t always follow, as we’ve come to respect. For one thing, if you take plaster off the walls downstairs it undermines that above. The bedroom will need to be redecorated when this job is done.
The only proper way to do a renovation on this scale is to move out, gut the lot and then rebuild in one go. But that does need deep pockets.
I am full of admiration. This must be the messiest bit ever of the gripping saga of your house.
It is indeed. So far…!
You could have had a beach party! Invited everyone to come with their shovels and pails to transfer the sand. Ah, well.
But, still, things are starting to look pretty good. Onward! Though more G&T’s are called for, clearly.
It’s about time the local supermarket had an offer on gin. If life was fair..
Oh my! Anyone need any sand? Jessica has plenty!! X
Now there’s a thought. We should have sold it on eBay!
Though perhaps it’s not the thought uppermost in your mind at present, I can’t help but think how wonderful it is that you can write a new chapter in the long life of this cottage – and certainly one which respects its past so well! But if I were you, on site, my thoughts would certainly tend more towards ‘when will we ever be !@@***££!! done with this project?? Your results are looking fabulous though!
Those nails are intriguing??!
Those nails are very intriguing. Allegedly the place was a blacksmith’s forge at one time in its life. I wonder if that has anything to do with it?
!@@***££!! is exactly where we are!
find a traditional blacksmith to ask? There is definitely an interesting story in those nails. Hand cut?
The traditional builder says yes, hand cut nails. Fascinating huh?
The nails represent a lot of stockings hung at Christmases past!
What a great idea. Wouldn’t that be lovely?
I remember in my Grandmother’s prewar house the beams were painted a mat leaf green with bit of grey in it. Very restful and beautiful. Good luck to it all!
Apparently the black which predominates in England comes from the Victorians’ desire to replicate the past. In days of olde soot would have naturally blackened the beams and so black was thought to be the appropriate colour. In keeping with the Victorian taste in decor perhaps but to modern day eyes it can be so oppressive, especially if there are a lot of beams. Green sounds much better!
What the heck did you do with all that sand? It looks as though you could create a beach. Your beams, brick floors and the dining room fireplace look splendid, though. Once again, you’re putting our remodel in perspective. Please keep the posts coming – my spirits need regular shoring up.
The sand has gone into a big hole in the woodland which used to be a pond. Stupid place to put a pond, underneath a dense canopy of deciduous trees.
It will be a race to the finish line between you and I Kris. I had hoped that, starting back in April, we would be done well before Christmas, decorating and all. I’m already doubting that will be possible.
~ genuflects ~
If I ever make it to Devon then big drinks are on me, in fact, I might even stump for lunch 🙂 Why? Because nearly every time I read what this building (and its previous owners) are putting you through a bit more of my “one day I will live in a 500-year-old cottage fantasy” gently slips away. I couldn’t do what you & Mike are going through, it would break me even if I would love the end result. Saving me from my future self has got to be worth a pint or two!
Well if you do ever make it to Devon you are very welcome to visit, especially if you are paying for lunch!
Don’t let us put you off your dream house though. Some renovations are easier, they must be or no-one would ever do it. Definitely not twice. And you already have the van to live in in the garden.
Woah, that is a lot of sand! But, gosh, the finished project is going to be amazing. I’m enjoying the journey–thanks for taking us along.
It was a huge amount of sand! Didn’t look a lot when the chap was filling up the hopper small bag by small bag. But there was certainly a lot of it by the end! Thanks Beth.
Another great read, Jessica – have you ever had an End Date in mind…?
I have stopped thinking in terms of end dates. That way I avoid the inevitable disappointment.
Goodness you really do things the hard way. It really does look like an abandoned house in the desert. Possible you could make a beach by your river, which would be fun in the summer.
I spent three years in Namibia, working for De Beers at Oranjemund. One of my jobs was supervising the prospecting plants run by geologists. Geologists are an odd bunch, intelligent but not engineers, so someone had to go and make sure the plants were properly run or the results would be meaningless. Funnily enough I never got to Kolmanskop but there were several other deserted towns south of Luderitz where the picture was much the same. The Night Sky was absolutely gorgeous as there was no light pollution.
Namibia is definitely on my list of places to see. There are some really lovely looking lodges to stay in now too. The night sky is very similar to outback Australia I would imagine and yes, absolutely gorgeous.
It wasn’t meant to be doing things the hard way but that is certainly the way it’s turned out. Still, ceilings down next. More mess. And then, just perhaps, we turn a corner.
Holy Smoke … or should I say Holy Sand particles ! At that price, shouldn’t there have been a tube and a large canvas/fabric bag attached to the sander to catch the detritus ? Or some kind of extractor fan system? My lungs would need something …. perhaps a holiday, certainly a G&T… You are producing an extraordinary result, but the process is hair-raising Jessica.
The bigger outfits, the ones we were trying to engage but were resistant to working out of area, do use sand/dust extraction. But the only type of extraction here was the large fan to clear the room just sufficiently to see across it to work. Most of the debris it generated is now deposited widely over the garden and my plants. I need a good rainstorm to wash it all away.
It’s certainly hard going this time around. We need to find time for just a day out sometime soon. If only to get some exercise and work off all the gin!
Very impressed with the results, it was definitely worth getting the sandblasting done. The floor looks lovely. Very disappointed he did not clear up for the price he charged, in fact we are both quite cross about it.
We are cross too but at least the job is done. There are only a couple of small black beams left in the house so we won’t be doing it again in a hurry. Poultice stripping next time, however long it takes.
Safe journey home.
Oh I love all those nails, what a lovely mystery! I bet you could make up a different story to go with them every week. Will you keep them?
We’ll definitely keep them, in situ. They’re part of the history of the house. I’d love to know why they are there though. I suspect it has something to do with the cottage being a blacksmith’s forge at some point in its life.
When I think of the moaning we held over the slight mess we have had in past renovation work, I am ashamed.
r Kevin McCloud would have been interested in your story.
I expected this whole renovation project to be messy but had hoped the mess would be contained pretty much to the two rooms directly involved. It’s the impact on the parts of the house you’re still trying to live in that is far worse. So I completely understand!
I would say you had Bondi Beach there if the roof was missing and the day was sunny, but best not to consider “roof missing” even in the imagination. The beams look marvelous despite the pine patches–history revealed is fascinating, even when mistakes are made with cheap pine. Sand–this too shall pass.
I suppose whoever put the pine up there, having also painted the beams black, thought it didn’t matter. To me anything is better than the black. Even the pine!
Is the sand any good to mix in with your clay soil?
That’s a good point Brian. Quite possibly. I tried it once as a slug deterrent too with reasonable success.