Watching Plaster Dry (Again)
WordPress tells me I’ve used this post title before, which doesn’t really come as a surprise. It fairly sums up my life over the last few years. Lime plaster takes a long time to dry, at least a week between each coat and only then if the weather conditions are favourable. Four coats are needed on even the most straightforward of walls. And in some places it’s considerably more. We’re now into the cycle of gradually building up the layers. The builders come in for a day or two, the ‘cement’ mixer goes into overdrive, the walls get another centimetre or so thicker and the drying process starts all over again.
Cast your mind back to the beginning of all this and you may recall that two of the sitting room walls had a strange inward curve, possibly from the constant rubbing against them by animals if this room had indeed originally been used as a barn. We made the decision to retain the curves for posterity. But that didn’t mean we could just leave unstable plaster and in the centre section of this wall there was plenty of that. To fill deep hollows the builders resort to ‘pots’. Literally, pots.. broken up terracotta pots embedded into the plaster to give it more solidity where it needed to be thick. Terracotta is the ideal material because it absorbs moisture from the plaster and thus creates a stronger bond. Thankfully I didn’t need to sacrifice any of my own pots. Above, in a particularly large depression, the builders have used old clay rooftiles.
The beauty of lime plaster is that it can be used to sculpt pretty much any contour the heart desires. In some areas practicality has determined the way to go. There will be a tall vertical radiator at this end of the room. The plumbers have completed ‘first fix’, placing the pipes in the wall ready to receive it. The little two legged frame at the bottom is a temporary arrangement, it’s there to hold the pipes in position while work continues around them. And the section of tree trunk? Well that one baffled me too for a while.. it’s to stop the adjacent door being opened in a rush and crashing against the projecting pipes!
But there’s a problem. Although difficult to see from this angle, the wall slopes steeply backward from bottom to top. It would have meant having a hefty baton, some two to three inches deep, between the back of the radiator and the wall to keep the radiator aligned to the vertical. If only ever seen from the front it maybe wouldn’t have been so bad, but in this case the radiator is viewed in side profile from the main entry into the room. Sloping the radiator back against the wall was the alternative solution but, in my mind at least, that would look even worse.
What we’ve done instead is to build out the wall. Call for more pots.. !
It isn’t finished yet either. When it is done the top coat of plaster will surround the white baton near the top of the wall leaving just an inch of it proud. The radiator brackets will be fixed to that. It has mitigated the problem rather than eliminated it, but the radiator will sit vertical and its fixings shouldn’t appear quite so obvious to anyone entering the room.
When the old carpet was pulled back at the start of the job (it feels like years ago now) we found a strip of concrete in the floor against this wall. There’s no clear indication as to why. But given that the plan is to restore the floor the concrete had to go. Hacking it all out took a couple of days and it reveals the structure typical of buildings of this age. There are no foundations, much less a damp proof course, the stones that make up the lower portions of each wall and the floor itself were laid directly onto bare earth.
The challenge now of course was to source more of the old bricks. Nothing is ever straightforward when you can’t just go down to the hardware store for the materials you need. The first bit was easy enough. A path in the garden gave up the first 100, perfectly aged and weathered! Mike lifted and carefully cleaned each brick and relaid the path with paving slabs and gravel. But that still left us short. Many years ago our neighbour had given us the name of someone who used to have some and by sheer good fortune, yes, he still did. Mike spent a morning clambering over the pile of bricks in the corner of the farmer’s yard, selecting another 100 of the best. Enough to complete our job with a few in reserve.
Onwards.
Coming along nicely. Much easier to watch plaster dry than paint!
Equally smelly!
Absolutely beautiful. You’re doing a marvelous job and I’m in awe at the lengths you have gone to in order to remain true to the house’s origins. Bravo!
Thanks. It feels the right way to do it, out of respect for the house and how long it has been here.
I have passed along your blog to 253 of my good Facebook friends here in America.
Thank you! We are certainly revealing a bit of history and it’s a fascinating process.
Jessica its just so cool to read these posts. So refreshing and interesting to watch the whole process unfold. It will be gorgeous..
Oh gosh, I hope so. It’s at this stage you think it’s never going to end. But don’t I say that at EVERY stage?! Thanks Penny.
It’s fascinating to watch this develop. The floor bricks are looking superb, worth going to the trouble of cleaning them (I’ve done a bit of that myself!) and sourcing more to complete the job.
Many of the floor bricks have been painted, unfortunately. We’re going to get them blasted at the same time as the beams. This type of brick is incredibly tough so hopefully it will be OK and save a lot of hard graft. I dread to think how long it would take to do two rooms by hand.
As I read your post, I couldn’t help wondering how your walls would hold up in an earthquake. Do you even get earthquakes in your part of the world? Although we haven’t had a really significant quake (6+) in more than 2 decades now, we’re constantly being warned that “the big one” is coming so it’s impossible not to think of whenever the topic of construction comes up. Best wishes with the plastering process. I guess the breaks in between application provides lots of time to play in the garden.
I did read somewhere that it is rigid foundations which lead to the most damage in an earthquake because the building cannot then flex along with the earth movement. I have no idea how true this is. Earthquakes in England are relatively rare and when they do occur the movement is so slight it’s barely discernible. Which is probably just as well for chez duck!
You all are so patient in your amazing project. Thanks for sharing all the details. It will be fun to compare the “befores” “durings” and “completeds” at the end. 🙂
Patience is really not my strong point so I’m very much looking forward to the ‘completeds’! It’s only been two months since we packed up the sitting room but it really does feel like years.
The stone floor is a thing of beauty. Our cottage (aged 170 and a comparative baby compared with yours) doesn’t have foundations either. Nor damp course. I wonder who invented foundations for buildings and why?
I just Googled foundations. My concentration lasted about 2 and a half minutes. I conclude, therefore, that I need know nothing about this subject as long as my home continues to stand for another 170 years…🙄
I didn’t realise how little there was between me and bare earth until I saw those bricks sitting directly on top of it. It makes me wonder a). How it has remained so dry all these years and b). What would have happened if I’d planted something with vigorous roots just the other side of the wall?
Cement manufacturers?
I don’t even want to think about how much all this is costing
This was part of the rationale for speeding up the work and getting it all done. It isn’t ever going to get any cheaper.
Amazing work. Good thing you two are ‘young’ enough to lug bricks (and whatever else) though I am sure this project is rapidly aging you. Looking forward to your posts on continued progress.
It is certainly taking its toll. I have just got my focus firmly set on the end of the summer when I hope it will all be done. And in the meantime take the opportunity for every meagre moment in the garden that time allows.
That floor is a thing of beauty! And I’m looking forward to admiring the barely noticeable radiator in the ‘It’s finished!’ post!
The floor was a real bonus find and, for the most part, it is intact and dry!
Just painting windows brings me out in hives. This level of restoration is amazing. Mind you when you fall in love with a house reason does go out of the window.
It’s very easy to say “Shall we just…” only for the project to expand or go off in a completely different direction. So much depends on what you find when you strip out the more recent layers and the opportunities which then present themselves.
You certainly need patience and persistence
Neither of which I have in abundance.
Always intriguing to read more about your never-ending renovation journey, Jessica… 😉
Never ending is exactly how it feels.
I’m always astounded to hear about your restoration – that’s a big job you guys took on! That brick floor looks gorgeous though. Amazing job!
Thanks Indie. They always turn out to be bigger jobs than we imagined at the start. Perhaps we should have learned a lesson by now..
The condition of things in the last photo seems quite encouraging–as if things are coming together (eyes averted from the ceiling).
The ceiling is the next big job. And not one I’m looking forward to at all.
I haven’t stopped in here in a while Jessica. Up to your old tricks I see and juggling monumental projects at the same time. It will be Devine when you are done. I don’t know how you do it all.
Great to hear from you Suzanne! I’ve been getting behind with Instagram. Well, most things really. Which tells the story, I can’t do it all!
Gosh. Such a lot of work but wonderful to see it all being done so authentically and to see how your house is constructed. I’m sure it’ll be fantastic when it’s finished but I’m sure you have moments when you’re totally fed up with the renovations. These projects are never straightforward. Hope you’re managing to get restorative time out in the garden!
I had a whole day in the garden today and it was wonderful! But yes, it’s very easy to get fed up with it, especially in the moments when nothing seems to be going according to plan. And there are plenty of those.