Triple decker

A couple of years ago, I blogged about the night we woke up to find water dripping into our bedroom. Since then we've had the roof (and the gutters) replaced, and the downspout cleared of tile shreds, and there's been no repeat of the leak.

Unfortunately that's not the end of the story, as we learned recently when discussing other works with our builder. He pointed out something that must have crept up on us while we weren't looking. In that stealthy way things that you see every day have, of changing imperceptibly over time so that you believe they've always been like that.

Fact is, when wooden beams get wet they lose more than 50% of their strength. The beam in our bedroom, that holds up the bay window, is a wooden beam. Saturated by the leaking roof, it sagged under the weight of the ceiling (an original lath-and-plaster job), and then dried out in its bowed state. When examined closely from most angles, the ceiling can be seen to have adopted a dangerous curve vaguely reminiscent of the radio telescope dish at Jodrell Bank.

So the whole lot has to come down, the beam replaced (or at best braced and pinned) and a new ceiling put up. Being an old house, we know the ceiling void is full of sooty, filthy, pumped asbestos fibre insulation (because we experienced it on a small scale when the toilet wall came down), so when the ceiling is "dropped" (see how fluently I insert real construction terms into the story) the room has to be cleared. Totally. Including... the wardrobe.

This beast has never negotiated the bedroom door. Or the landing. It arrived in five (count 'em) boxes and was assembled in situ, so to move it out of situ will require some disassembly. And that, gentle reader, was this weekend's project.

In the end, and entirely predictably, the single wardrobe section proved not to be a problem. Much. Undoing the bolts that hold the two sides together did result in minor chewing of the veneered chipboard, but nothing that's visible in everyday use, so that's OK. With its pelmet removed the single side slid happily through the door, across the landing, through the study and now sits in its allotted slot beside the window.

The double side was not so easy. It proved literally a millimetre too wide to turn the corner into the study, but that was the millimetre that counted. We couldn't lift it over the skirting board either, as that meant it hit the top of the door. The only thing to do was commandeer some space in Nat's room for the duration. It makes an already small space even smaller, but it should only be for a week or so. Once the construction is complete the wardrobe can move back in and sit under a sheet while I decorate. Or we may decide not to bother until the carpet is down, to avoid too much toing and froing. So, a few weeks really then. Sorry Nat.

Our room doesn't half feel big without it though.