Before and after

It's time to look a little more closely at the changes. A pub has little booths and corners that any kind of shop wouldn't want, so we needed to open out the lower floor so far as we could. At the same time, there are some historic features we don't want to spoil, and the next few pictures show these.

In the café area there is some wooden panelling. Some of the modern wood has been stained rather darker than it needs to be, so we have to look at lightening that wood and providing more consistent lighting. No two wall lights seem to be the same, which either adds to the charm or drives you daft, depending on how you look at it.

You can see part of the old flint wall we'll leave untouched, and a corner of a modern black fire surround that may find itself replaced.

The second feature we need to keep is the floor. Parts of it are old slate or granite, but other parts are more modern slate. 

As you can see, the slate is very dark, so we need to add as much light as possible elsewhere. We also have low ceilings, which means the lights don't spread very far and we need a lot of them to light the interior.

We also need to keep the Victorian winding staircase at the back.

The ceiling may look very quaint but it's actually modern. Those beams are pieces of ordinary 2x2 softwood nailed to the ceiling and painted dark brown.

As we opened out the lower floor we have removed some of the wood cladding on the beams and areas of modern ceiling. Coupled with removing some interior walls it's surprising how much difference that makes, particularly because it has shown that the ceiling was lower in some areas than it needed to be. To illustrate the point, here are a pair of photos taken from roughly the same spot looking towards the front doors.

The item in the foreground of the lower picture is part of the bar that is headed for recycling. You'll also note that the floor has been covered with heavy gauge polythene to protect it. In the background you can see yet another type of wall light.

This is a good moment to thank our neighbours, who have been very understanding, particularly Graham Morris in Edward Street who has allowed us to keep a skip in his driveway so we can get rubble off the site as quickly as possible.

There is still plenty to do, and it doesn't look much like a pharmacy yet. But it will.