New games room!

After finishing the work on the main house we had time to convert one of the 50 square metre vaulted cellars into a new games room. The first job was to clear it out and level the floor. The cellar started out with a damp soil floor and the walls were all bare granite and also very damp. The plan was to render the walls with a breathable lime and sand render and make a concrete floor with a damp proof membrane. The cellar at the beginning of the job:

The lime render was mixed in the cement mixer, then transfered into buckets and applied to the walls using a sponge. A very time consuming process (several days) as there are a lot of walls and they have deep gaps betweem them that need filling also.

The finished walls, turned out quite well and a lot less damp and dingy now.

Next a really big job is to level the floor, we now have a laser tripod level which makes this a much easier task. we shifted the soil around the cellar until it was roughly the same height everywhere.

Then we laid the damp proof membrane.


Next we place metal work around the floor and cement it in at the same level all round to give the final floor height and allow it to be leveled off later. We also used reinforcing mesh to stop the concrete cracking.
I made up a chute to pour the concrete down from boards and lined it with damp proof membrane to allow the wet concrete to slide down it. This way we can have the mixer outside next to the piles of sand, gravel and sacks of cement and when mixed I can flip the mixer down the chute. Ro has a wheelbarrow at the bottom of the chute and can then place the concrete where its needed.

As the floor is so large we laid it in sections and worked on it when we had time over several weeks. We used about 3 cubic metres of concrete in total with my trailer only taking a ton of material at a time that was a lot of journies to the DIY shop to get sand, gravel and cement!

The final floor, doesn't look bad for a first attempt!

My next job was to wire in lights, sockets and bring a tv cable down from the house. Luckily I was able to pull a cable down from the kitchen ceiling, through the conduit for the wiring circuits in the cellar and then extend it along the walls via my new wiring to the sockets.

>

The new games room is large enough for a full sized table tennis table, a pool table, several sofas, table and chairs and still loads of space. Cost us about a 1000 euros in materials, so not bad for gaining such a decent room!