Hello
Our turn-of-the-century apartment was renovated along with the rest of the building in the late '70s. At the same time as they destroyed as much of the turn-of-the-century charm as they could, they took the opportunity to change the layout of the apartments and install bathrooms in them. This involved, among other things, sealing off the door to the living room (which otherwise would now mean a large double door opening to the bathroom) and creating another, smaller opening. The wall between the living room and bathroom, where the door once was, is about half a meter thick. When knocking on the plaster where the opening used to be, it sounds more "hollow" than the rest of the wall. However, it's not completely hollow behind the plaster, as I was able to determine by drilling in with a long drill. All the way (or as far as I got), there continued to be a slight resistance from something that appeared to be (judging by the dust that came out of the hole) some sort of lightweight concrete/plaster.
The reason I'm so eager to find out what's going on is that I'm planning to make a bookshelf recessed in the wall - i.e., in the old doorway. Unfortunately, the door wasn't sealed with a chipboard and plaster... But what could be in there? I suspect that Lecablocks were not something used in the late '70s, but filling the entire void with lightweight concrete seems rather unnecessary and cumbersome. Does anyone have any ideas about what might be behind the plaster??
Our turn-of-the-century apartment was renovated along with the rest of the building in the late '70s. At the same time as they destroyed as much of the turn-of-the-century charm as they could, they took the opportunity to change the layout of the apartments and install bathrooms in them. This involved, among other things, sealing off the door to the living room (which otherwise would now mean a large double door opening to the bathroom) and creating another, smaller opening. The wall between the living room and bathroom, where the door once was, is about half a meter thick. When knocking on the plaster where the opening used to be, it sounds more "hollow" than the rest of the wall. However, it's not completely hollow behind the plaster, as I was able to determine by drilling in with a long drill. All the way (or as far as I got), there continued to be a slight resistance from something that appeared to be (judging by the dust that came out of the hole) some sort of lightweight concrete/plaster.
The reason I'm so eager to find out what's going on is that I'm planning to make a bookshelf recessed in the wall - i.e., in the old doorway. Unfortunately, the door wasn't sealed with a chipboard and plaster... But what could be in there? I suspect that Lecablocks were not something used in the late '70s, but filling the entire void with lightweight concrete seems rather unnecessary and cumbersome. Does anyone have any ideas about what might be behind the plaster??
I remember from my childhood in the 70s that a lot of lightweight concrete blocks were used, which were somewhat like pumice. So not concrete hollow blocks, but rather porous "lättbetong". They were usually light gray to white in color. That would be my guess.
Hmm, some sort of block still - maybe. However, I don't think I have seen any such lättbegongblock in reality. The crucial thing is really how troublesome it is to make a reasonably sized opening in the bricked-up door - without damaging the bathroom wall on the other side... Well, I guess there's really nothing else to do than to tear off a good bit of plaster and take a look. Loosely joined blocks of some kind would, of course, be very good! Just lift them away, I mean!
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