Creating alcoves in granite rubble filled walls

[Roz]

Hi! I’m new - thanks for having me! We are about to start the process of planning and converting a tiny barn in cornwall 

 

the walls are granite and rubble filled. Due to the size, I have been pondering ways of creating space and I was wondering about the feasibility of creating an alcove in the wall on the inside to turn it into a coat cupboard? It wouldn’t need to be that deep if it was just peg hooks and place for a few shoes. 

 

Is this the sort sort of thing you would tell me not to even think about? I wouldn’t do it myself. I’m unsure about the stability and whether it’s possible to stabilise it. 

 

Im sure I will have lots of other questions but I thought I would start here!  thanks for your thoughts

 

i know it looks a state in the pic but it’s had a good structural report 

[Dee J]

I think if you're making anything big enough to act as a useful cupboard, that will challenge the wall structure considerably. It's almost like creating a doorway. And given the lack of foundations in these old structures, how the transferred load acts is difficult to predict. On a smaller scale, creating a tiny alcove in our rubble stone house produced an egg-timer effect which seemed like that the entire house would fall out of the tiny hole! Interesting challenge to work with these old structures!

[Roz]

Yes that's what I thought might be the case. I thought it would be easy enough to say go half way through the wall and support above with a lintel, but I wasn't sure if the remaining wall behind the alcove would just collapse in on itself or something! 

[ProDave]

I have seen builders widen or create new openings in these sort of structures. It can all go very bad very quickly with a lot of the wall falling down.

 

Which wall do you want the alcove in?  You have the benefit of no roof, so that's less weight, but less bracing as well.

 

If it's one of the side walls I would suggest taking down the portion of wall above the alcove, fitting lintels and rebuilding.

[Cpd]

Its really not worth it unless you are rebuilding that section of wall as it can cause major damage. I have done it in the past but only when i was rebuilding the wall and that wall was 1m thick. Remember any new recess will also need insulating to the same standard  as the rest of the wall (if insulating internally.) My recess was for shelving and i only did it for fun on a shed wall. 

[ToughButterCup]

5 hours ago, Roz said:

[...]

Is this the sort sort of thing you would tell me not to even think about?

[...]

 

Quite the opposite.

It's a question of balance.  How do you work out what to do?

 

Network.

Charm a few local builders to sniff around it. Same with local estate agents.  Take a local planner round too.

Listen.  

 

My fingertips are saying - knock it down and rebuild. It's likely to be cheaper and quicker.

Welcome by the way

Ian

[gravelld]

What's to the left of the picture? Could you build around it, having it encased in another house? My old Uni did that in one of the student bars, quite an interesting effect. On the other hand, you end up with a pretty large dwelling which might not be what you want.

Edited March 6, 2018 by gravelld

[Roz]

Thanks everyone! Some interesting thoughts. I'm hoping not to have to rebuild too much as it's got a good structural report at the moment. Plus, the council is quite against extensive rebuilding happening. So perhaps I'll give up on this recess idea! I was just trying to be clever about where to keep coats  they're so pesky. I've also read comments on other applications on the council not liking porches on barn conversions, but perhaps it depends on the type of porch. I'm not sure I'm that mad on them either to be honest and they seem so expensive for the space you get.

 

To the left of the picture is the boundary between the barn and the next door property. 

 

A few people have asked about whether we will knock it down. My feeling is that the council wouldn't be keen. We might be able to afford a slightly bigger house from it, but our budget isn't big. Part of the attraction of this place was that it's a barn, and if we do it well although it'll be small it'll have good resale value down here. 

 

Our current plan is to extend about 3.5x3.5m off the back as you see it in the pic, and also put in a SIP garden room as I work from home so we could use it as an office and also a guest room. We're wondering at the moment whether we should include the garden room on the first plans to the council or not. Or wait. But if we did it at the same time we could construct it first and stay in it whilst the rest of the work is happening.

 

Lots to think about!