Tales from the crypt

Well the basement, have to spice these posts up a bit!

On Thursday we popped down to Hudson Valley House Parts to pick up some lime binder as we only had 1 & 1/2 bags left. Unfortunately they only had the pre-mixed in stock which is an expensive way to buy the product so we left empty handed, bit of a bugger as we really needed the lime so on Thursday evening we decided to get up on Friday at 5am and drive 3 hours to LimeWorks in Telford, Pennsylvania and pick up ten bags of NHL lime. Bit of a trek but it was really nice to visit the LimeWorks HQ and meet the highly knowledgeable staff. If you have an old house, it might be worth visiting LimeWorks, especially if you’re doing some of the work yourself as they as they have a great series of educational workshops.

We started early on Saturday, but as the base of the walls had deteriorated quite a bit they required a lot of the mortar and stone, hence progress was slow and after seven hours we had maybe done a half of what we had hoped. Also our local historic preservation expert Derrick popped around and though that we should remove all of the sound plaster as he thought that it was Portland cement. You can see the plaster in the second picture. I’ve started removing it but it’s tough stuff and will probably take 3 or 4 evenings to complete.

Also of note in the second picture is the blocked up coal chute high up on the wall. The mortar had just crumbed so had to be replaced, hence why it looks new.

Sunday was a slower day for us but we did manage a good 4 hours or so and started to removing the plaster. This week we’ll hopefully prep all the remaining walls and be ready to finish the parging next weekend. Good timing as temperatures are starting to drop.