Whilst all this is going on, we took the opportunity to remove the old bathroom and tiny utility room by the old front door, creating the space for the new kitchen.

We now officially live in a building site.

Years of limescale didn't help, as modelled by John the builder (Big Dave's brother)

And all this work was caused by this - a drain that had been allowed to fill up with silt and stones over many years. The rainwater from the roof just poured into the walls, rusting the steel bars, and destroying the concrete.

Regular cleaning of the drains would have save all this.

Ho hum.

The patchwork of repairs almost ready to be sanded and painted.

Don't worry, the lovely trail of rust under the (hideous) outside light will also be fixed.

Meanwhile, work on reshaping the parapets continues in the sun

The whole demolition exercise took a few days with a couple of these demolition chisels going, and made a complete mess of the stairs. (And this is after they had cleaned up a lot)

I don't think we'll be keeping the stair carpet.

The last bit of the concrete lintel being dug out. It is these reinforcing bars which have rusted and exploded the concrete, so we are sure to get them completely removed.

So, as we had caclulated, the lintel (at this point) is only holding up about an inch or two of concrete, under the gulleygoing around the tower roof. It is holding itself up with no assistance (for now).

Meanwhile, Big Dave (the boss-man builder) is filling some cracks outside, leaving his boys to do the dirty (and noisy) work

So the left hand side of the lintel has been taken out, and roof has stayed up - so far so good.

The offending (failing) lintel is propped up on Acro props. This is the point that we hope the lintel is not holding up the granite parapet wall, as there is no way a few bits of timber would hold up the that tonnage!

However we had our figures checked by a structural engineer, so now is the moment of truth, as we cut away part of the lintel, and see what it is holding up.

Raking out the cracks on the parapet wall. Large chunks of render come off in your hand, as the water and salt has got underneath them over the years.

I did my own little bit of painting too

Sample pots of Farrow & Ball, as we need to decide on colours fairly quickly. Fortunately, it's all white or magnolia inside (and the same outside).

Even the rusty beading around the bin store was treated

Finishing the rendering outside, ready for painting tomorrow

After doing a little bit of inside work to prepare for removing the lintel, the rest of the day was spent outside. We will wait until Monday before starting with the noisy demolition hammer.

Render removed to get access to RHS of lintel - the black stuff is old damp proofing

Ceiling removed to get clear access to lintel

The work area screened off

The work area. The plastic is taped top and bottom as well, to keep the dust down

Stairway sealed off with plastic and a dustsheet. Note the door screwed to the ceiling!

Internal wall removed at top of stairs

Internal walls around stairs removed

The skip has arrived