Down come the ceilings

This weekend I decided to take down all of the ceilings in the bedroom area. That's about 80 square metres. There were two main reasons for taking them down:

•  the engineer who needs to sign the Baubeginnsanzeige wants to see the joists
• fire regulations

Also, the ceiling was not very level - it sank considerably in some places. I thought that this might be due to a rotten joist so I wanted to have a look at the general condition of the timber anyway. Also, the ceiling boards had quite a lot of woodworm, so I wanted to make sure that this was not in the joists as well. That would mean trouble - and more money. The first picture shows one of the first problems I found when I started taking the ceiling down. As you can see, the door opening does not have a lentil supporting above. There is a heavy joist bearing down directly on the wall above the opening. There is considerable signs of lag here - the upper horizontal of the door opening is curved down by about 4-5 cm in the middle. One of the next jobs will be to prop the joist on either side of the wall and put in a proper lentil to support the weight.

When I took down the ceiling in Eileen's room, I found that the joists were in quite good condition. The boards were riddled with woodworm and the joists showed light signs of worm - but it looks as if the woodworm don't really go for the type of timber the joists are made of. When the boards were all gone, I thought that what would make a fantastic ceiling would be to leave the joists open and to hang a plastered ceiling (drywall) between the joists. It would mean that not all of the joists would be visible, but over half of it should be possible. This would also mean the ceiling would not have to be a hundred percent level - the joist would more than likely break up any uneveness that the eye would otherwise pick up. If we go ahead with this idea, we'd have to scrape or sand the joists and varnish them (or wax them - whatever suits). Below is another photo of the ceiling in Eileen's room (the lack of ceiling, more like - what looks like a ceiling is actually the floor of the attic).

One surprise I got when taking down the ceiling in Eileen's room was this nest. It isn't inhabited anymore, so I'll remove it next week. Hopefully they won't be back any time soon.

Also, share a thought for Pat the Rat. I found this guy in the ceiling. It looks like he got in as a small rat and stuffed himself on the wheat that was in between the ceiling and the attic floor. He probably got too fat to get back out and died of thirst.