DIY Project Diary – week 12

I had a meeting with the local planning office and they confirmed that the space on the first floor cannot be opened up because a protected escape route must exist in case of fire. These rules apply to three (or more) storey buildings. Installing a fire escape into the garden is not acceptable because the garden doesn’t have a direct access from a public road, and it’s not bigger than the height of the building. Expandable ladders attached to outside of the windows are not allowed either..

We can take out the wall between the kitchen and the living room and we could change the walls into fire-proof glass walls – as long as a protected escape route remains. 

Given that we want to have an extension anyway, I came up with an alternative plan: we create a two storey extension, install a spiral staircase leading up to the first floor where we would create a new protected landing between the staircases. By doing this we divert the protected escape route into the extension and back into the house on the ground floor. This idea is accepted. However it needs planning permission because the extension would be higher than 4m. This is a conservation area – all neighbours would have to agree to it.  This could take months (if not years) and I want have a proper kitchen as soon as possible. Then we have to consider the costs – building a two storey extension just for the sake of an added staircase is not really feasible. So we are puzzled. Changing the walls into glass or even glass bricks would also cost a fortune.

So I had to get back to the drawing board and rethink the whole project. Eventually I decided to follow the advice of the building officer and keep the hallway walls – we’ll just remove the wall between the kitchen and the living room.

In the meantime I started to remove all dado-rails around the house. I cannot understand why they put these things into new buildings? What’s the point? What are they for (other than collecting dust)? They do not have a practical nor a visual purpose in modern buildings. Of course the dados were glued and nailed onto the plasterboard –   I tried to remove the dados gently but the plasterboard came with them. We need to plaster over it.

The floor layer came over again wondering when he could start doing the parquet floor. We originally booked him for February then postponed him to April. It’s now June and we haven’t even started doing anything in the kitchen & living room. We’ll be starting it this week but first I need to design it.

I feel really let down and angry – the main purpose of our remodelling this house was to create a big open space on the first floor… a wow experience as you come up the stairs… this cannot now be realised. Building and safety regulations are of course necessary but they should take into account how people actually live. What is the point of an escape route if most people leave all the doors open anyway?