Lathing it on

Sunday, Monday 7 - 8 April

Dave's first test panel for earth plaster seemed to be working well, so we threw ourselves into making more laths and nailing them to batons inside each aperture in the wood frame.  This small wall will be at the back of the battery cupboard in due course, so we felt it was a good practice area.  There's a lot of work in putting a wall in like this, but it has the advantage of using only left overs and naturally occurring materials, and so can be done at no cost whatever (a major consideration at the moment). 

Dave's first panel with scratch plaster coat, and next to it, a lathed panel, covered with fibreglass mesh to help the plaster stick.

 The chickens inspecting the work from the other side, as one of the big diagonals gets lathed

 Olive-wood corners - lovely things, but difficult to fit batons to, especially as the oily wood resists drilling.  My job was fixing the batons, and it took a while to develop a technique for the rounded corners.  Doing it like this, though, means that the corners will be visible within the wall when the plastering is finished, it won't cover them.

 The chickens are weird!  Despite Dave nailing batons right here, they came to sit close by.  We think they like being in a flock, and we're the flock.  Even if we are noisy.

 This is one of our two large piles of offcuts.  It is a joy to get this stuff used, as it takes up so much floor space.

 Me and my drill, getting into an awkward spot to fix batons

The lathed-up wall, all batons fixed and meshed, ready for plastering.  One side only, as the other side faces the bathroom, and will need a waterproof wall covering, which we're still trying to decide about.