Currently racing against time to get a few more jobs finished before it gets too cold. Highest on the list is to repair and parge the interior walls. We can’t do this much below 40°F (5°C) and we’re already hitting those lows outside. Getting this finished means that we can start to frame out the inside over winter and then add insulation.
Lime based walls seem to shed off their outer layers over time, not exactly sure why, possibly as the walls leach out impurities, but this is normal. This happens over many decades and this is the first time our walls have been repaired in over 100 years so they’ve stood up pretty well. Over the last few months I think we’ve been over each of these walls about three times, first pass was to remove the old plaster and the other two were to remove loose stone and mortar and I think we’ve easily removed a few hundred pounds. After having two wall collapse it has made me nervous when I have to remove maybe 4″ of wall, but if the mortar is loose or hollow sounding it’s probably not adding much structurally. Once the framing goes up these walls probably won’t see the light of day for decades so the results don’t have to be perfect, just has to be sound. Ohhh anyone want to paint something cool on our walls before we cover them up?
It took me about 6 hours on Saturday to do a final chipping of all the walls, vacuum all the dust off them, clean up the floor and frame the windows with foam so I get a good edge when I spray on the mortar, then on Sunday another 6 hours and I managed a disappointing 10 square feet or so. Aimee’s been out west so it takes a lot longer when you have to do everything yourself, plus the walls needed quite a bit of mortar, maybe 4″ to 5″ inches in some parts. You can see in the time lapse that I did add as many stones that I could squeeze in, which helps strengthen the wall and saves on mortar.
Aimee will be back soon so this weekend we’ll try and finish all the walls. So early start on Saturday and I’ll try and have an early night.
Really hope you can get this done so you can do the framing etc. this winter that would another big step. 🤞🏼
Thanks Chris and I’m sure we will get it done, especially as the weather seems to be getting a bit warmer for this coming weekend 🙂