Lath & plaster

The first bit of lime plaster was added today after more preparations with metal gauze, laths and plasterboard and we both got very excited by this!

Cat was not looking forward to starting her bedroom window. It is nowhere near the scaffolding, so it would have to be done on a ladder. Charlie and Alan set up one of their plastering platforms for her to use when she was away making tea! Amazing!

Jasper with Charlie, the latest member of Jasper’s fan club.

A gauze tape gets stuck around all the edges and joins in the plasterboard on the study and sitting room ceilings. This helps stop the plaster from cracking at these weak points.

A metal gauze is fixed over the bricked in doorway in the study, adding a textured surface for the plaster to adhere to.

We are now at the stage, with the plaster going on, where we have to finalise paint colours. With us both being designers makes this a difficult task and we are suffering from colour blindness after looking at so many colour charts, so we took a trip out to Brewers to see their much larger swatches in store.

We were there for quite a while and almost had a full on argument with tantrums but both managed to stop ourselves, thankfully.

These are the colours we have decided on. Down Pipe is for exterior windows, Purbeck Stone for interior windows and woodwork (where it is not oiled wood, so some of the windows), Pigeon for the sitting room, Blackened for the stairs and landing areas, and Oval Room Blue and De Nimes possibly for feature walls in bedrooms, we are undecided on these yet as it depends on how dark the rooms feel after they are plastered.

Dad popped by to check on progress. Note Cat’s sunglasses. She will have lost these by the end of the day.

The dining room window primed and ready for the stone sill to be repaired and the glass to be fitted next week.

Cat’s bedroom window is in a pretty bad state as expected. We could see that there was a lot of filler on the outside. The panes of glass are flush with the outside frame but this is not how they should sit. Years and years of adding putty on top of putty has built it up so thick that the glass has moved further and further out!

Under the blue tarp is the mixer, ready to be put to work.

Zanna and Cat are removing the panes of glass from Cat’s bedroom window, a very delicate task and one Cat cannot do as she has an understandable fear of breaking glass. We managed to save two out of six panes which is an improvement on other windows to be honest!

The window sill is in a pretty bad way so will need surgery by Glynn on Saturday…

The bottom left corner has crumbled and came away with the filler.

We have another two plasterers helping today, Dan and Mitch. Dan is marking up the plasterboard ready for cutting.

Mitch is working on installing the plasterboard into Zanna’s bedroom ceiling.

Josh is back today to continue sanding and oiling the timbers on the first floor, starting with the mighty tie beam on the landing.

The tie beam looking absolutely stunning with a coat of oil! The supporting timber underneath it has gone much darker with a coat of oil. The darker the timber goes, generally, the older the timber is. The tie beam is probably 3-400 years old so this piece of timber must be ancient!

The scarf joint repair on the tie beam with the steel plate across the top holding it all together.

Dan and Mitch getting to grips with moving large things up the awkwardly small staircase!

Cat still has her sunglasses…

Josh working on Zanna’s bedroom door frame.

These are the new laths that have been added to the ceiling in the sitting room window over the underside of the lintels. The laths are made of chestnut, which is traditionally what they would have used too, so they match the few remaining original ones we have left.

The scratch coat of lime plaster has been added to the laths above the sitting room window. We are ridiculously excited about this!

Trouble is it is a very messy process…

The timbers on the first floor have now all been oiled by Josh.

This evening there was a spectacularly red sunset.

Jasper lit up by the sunset. This is when Cat lost her sunglasses. She left them on the path in the woods. Luckily for her Zanna found them the next day on her morning walk and she didn’t even know Cat had lost them!

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