All Restoration Updates

Flooding in Flitwick brings the BBC over to talk to us and our neighbours.

View down the stairs from the first floor

U-boats had a push button firing system with a characteristic red light. We found a rotary switch to replace the push button so we could launch our very own. The red light denotes the status "engaged" in our downatairs water closet.

The stainless steel shield to the right in this picture is to be fitted adjacent to the waterwheel protecting the brickwork.

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The arrival of the log burning stove brought potential warmth to winter at the mill. It was supplied and delivered by JDay Stoneworks, who took one look at our very tatty looking stone sink and pronounced it Rosso Verona Marble. You could have knocked me down with a feather. A bit of elbow grease subsequently turned an ugly duckling into a proper swann.

The reclaimed edwardian ceramic sink is fitted to the Shakespeare bathroom the copperware is perfectly in keeping.

The door to the spare bathroom and to our bedroom effectively disappear into the walls.

The area of pannelling to the left of this image is formed of two matching ledged and braced oak doors.

Galvanised conduit looks perfectly in place in a mill. Sockets turning a room that was once a grainstore into an office.

The balconies around the gallery and the first floor are made of steel bars rescued from a local scrap yard.

One of the critical factors in designing a ventilation system is conducting the pipework about the place. Here there are two ventilation pipes that have to pass through the master bedroom. together with the soil pipe from an adjacent bathroom. These will eventually become bespoke drawer runs and a walk-in wardrobe.

'Romeo and Juliet' have a lot to live up to. Shakespeare wasn't the only one to have a window looking out into open plan living. We needed a little something to stop people falling off the stairs to the kitchen floor below. Almost the same factory window as we used on the balcony worked perfectly with a bit of jiggery pokery with a chisel and hammer.

Stair design is a challenge at the best of times. There are regulations to be complied with. Working out how to place the bars on the main staircase and specifically how the thing goes together practically takes time and requires patience and attention to detail.

This is the early part of the ground floor staircase evolution.

Spraying the blue gearbox with red-iron-oxide coloured paint red oxide is a bit of a theme in the mill.

We elected to have wetrooms in all the bathrooms; here the walls are also waterproof with polished venetian plasterwork. You can have any colour or pretty much any finish you fancy. We have matching copperware, walls tiles and Rosso Verona marble sink and window ledge.

The kitchen is a typical place where undesirable hot air and smells are generated. (Offices can do the same). The mill was an industrial building and so it is perfectly fitting to make a feature of ventilation ducting and for that matter galvanized conduit for the electrical circuits. Here are two extractor pipes from the kitchen and a third crossing the utility room to the downstairs loo.

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Ground floor tiling is almost complete. "Chicago State Street," is the name of the Italian porcelain tiles on the ground floor. 4000 of em! Laid in herringbone they look like they've been there forever.

Wes was the man responsible for showing off the tiling around the pit wheel... - and everywhere else for that matter.

Tiles around one of the mediaeval posts shows a meticulous attention to detail.

Beautifully fitted porcelain tiles around the round posts of the auxilliary hursting frame. This cast iron structure is thermally isolated from the ground below by means of foamglass bricks. This minimises the effect of "cold bridging" a malady which causes local condensation.

This was the first sign of us actually moving in. Unfortunately the bed didnt quite fit under the beam which is out of shot here. We fixed that with a hacksaw and a bit of welding...

There are a number of mill features that could have easily been removed and we wanted to retain as much as reasonably practical. Here we added a few shelves, removed some rotten, worm-riden timber and converted a grain-chute  into bathroom shelving.

The second floor of the mill was previously windowless grain storage. We spent a great deal of time and effort understanding the building and assessing the best ways in which we could put grain storage to better use. This space was formerly unusable because the ceiling height was a mere 55inches.

We bought a "stone sink" as seen from Watling Reclamation. The bloke from JDay Stoneworks delivered two things when he dropped off our log burner. The news that this was not stone but "Rosso-Verona marble" and that it could be transformable into something spectacular with a bit of elbow grease.

One of the engineering requirements for a well insulated building is a proper ventilation system. This is a portion of the fixtures and fittings that contribute to the mechanical heat recovery ventilation system installed in the mill.

We needed to avoid the void adjacent to the first floor landing. Apart from anything else we trialled the staircase in three locations. Patience provided an opportunity to repurpose factory windows into a balcony.

Don and Shakey discuss how to make good around the new first floor door.