The news is not great. The end wall is infested with wet rot after years of damp problems.

We find a specialist in St Just who will come out and inspect

...and Timmy (the sparky) tries to understand the spaghetti of old wiring.

Whilst Young Dave (bathroom king) and Jason (chippy) take a coffee break, Big Dave carries on investigating the mould spores we found in the wall.

This is not good news.

The rest of the bathroom has now been cleared out, allowing us to sort out the electrics before installing the new wetroom.

Having cleared out what will be the kitchen, we brought the old ceiling down, as it was in very poor shape.

It took about an hour to bring down, and another 2-3 to clear the unholy mess!

We traced the cables behind the bathroom wall - good job that water and electricity mix so well!

Having fixed the structural problem, we get back to the planned work. Here we are starting to trace all the electrical circuits that run under the top floor.

Timmy, our electrician, used to occasionally swear loudly, which didn't give me confidence in the quality of the original wiring. This will all have to be fixed.

The new lintels are supported on concrete and engineering brick. The old pipes from the header tank are no longer needed, as we are moving to mains pressure hot water.

The failed concrete lintel has now been replaced by a series of 9x3 wooden beams

A brief hiatus

We took a brief hiatus from updating the blog. Our internet seems to be relying on carrier pigeon, with the telephone line doing a "one day on, one week off" routine for about 6-7 weeks.

It now seems to be better (although we are going to replace it), so here is the catch up.

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