Opening up the housemaid’s pantry

We have created a new room! Well actually just re-instated an old room that had been bricked up. The housemaid’s pantry was a sad short lean-to with a little window door to the outside. You can see it from the outside on the photo above – it is just the little angled wall with the black weatherboard to the left of the ivy covered wall.  As part of the Kitchen renovation we are getting the boiler moved and a hot water cylinder put in and this seemed like a great space to put them all. From the inside there was no evidence of this room as it was hidden behind the cupboards.

The servants area of our house was originally divided into

• tradesman’s entrance
• kitchen
• pantry
• scullery
• housemaids pantry

The only problem was that the Housemaid’s pantry had been sealed up. The original doorway was hidden behind kitchen cabinets and had been bricked up.

The first job was to remove the kitchen cabinets and the tiles. 

You can see the outline of the old doorway in the plaster (it is easier to see the bricked up door from the other side but there was no light and I forgot to take a photo!)

The door was knocked out by us with a combination of breaker and sledgehammer.

Once this was opened we discovered that the space was nicer and roomier than we had expected, there is a step down so the head height is better than you first think.

It will easily fit all the cleaning stuff and could even have a washing machine and tumble dryer in it – if I hadn’t already created a laundry room. But before that could happen we needed to clean it all out and get a door made for the hole.

Evan from Bare Joinery made the door for us and very solid it is too. 

So we have a new room, still need to move the boilers, whitewash the walls and put some architrave round the door, but in essence it is done!

Here it is with it’s new boilers