Friday 31 August 2018

I love the smell of plaster in the morning ...

31 August 2018

It's been a long time since we did any plastering, and I found I really enjoyed finding my buckets and trowels and rubber gloves and smoothing those walls out like the old days.

We had been all set to get on with the last three ceiling boards in the Music Room, when Dave's son Rob rang to say his accommodation for mid September had fallen through, and could he and family stay with us.  No problem, of course, but it made us re-think the work that needs doing in the Music Room - could we get the ceiling done, the upper wall sections limewashed and the last open panel plastered before they came?  It swiftly occurred to us that we needed to prioritise the plastering, if it was going to be dry enough to limewash when we do the rest of the upper sections, so Dave set the mixer going.

 The first mix in many months - love that limey smell!

 The panel causing the problem is the one where we had a big hot air pipe to warm the bedroom from the little stove in the music room.  Now we have the big stove in the living room - which warms the bedroom too, the pipe has been removed and the panel closed up.

 Meanwhile, Rowan has been round and has set Jade (just visible skulking in the shadows) to work preparing the 'greenhouse' (passive solar warm air maker) for fitting the glass roof.  Nice if this gets done for this winter.

 With half a barrow of plaster left, we thought we might as well deal with the disruption and do the other side of the unplastered panel (in the bedroom) at the same time.  So I set up all the paraphernalia: plaster and trowels in bucket; protective sheets; water mister; staple remover for all the old staples in the woodwork (from when the bedroom was lined with rugs); staple gun and staples for the blue plastering mesh; roll of blue plastering mesh; wet and dry towels to clean the woodwork afterwards; masking tape for electric fittings; second bucket of plaster and rubber gloves.  
Phew! - for such a small space there's a lot of equipment to cart around.

 Finished.  With just enough plaster to complete the job.  Because the squared off section had rough batons framing it, I wanted to lose them in the wall, which meant that the whole section up to the roof boards had to be given an overcoat of plaster.

 Then I put the bedroom back in place around it.  Just got to remember not to poke it with anything for a few days.

A sneaky shot to catch Jade in action when she wasn't looking!

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