Woods
Active Member
100 year old house that needed fixing upstairs, moisture damaged plaster (mixture of gypsum, sand-cement and loam) from penetrating damp (rain hitting old, weathered mortar joints). Mostly the gypsum and sand-cement were in bad shape; there was a lot of mold the owners said. They cleaned up the mold and asked me to plaster over the old work but was able to convince them to take it all off because it was in very bad shape and it would be much better and safer to start off fresh.
I render-floated the old brick with meager, hot-mixed lime mortar (1:4) with a little bit of sugar added to make the mix more plastic and re***d the set. I did most of it in one base coat and then finished it with a coarse, fat hot-mixed marmorino. In the large bedroom they wanted a deep blue. In the small bedroom they wanted white. In the hallway I sponge floated the base coat (budget reasons).
I also removed the chimney for them and arranged for a plumber to clean up the mess of pipe work in the small bedroom. Also did some patchwork on the ceiling.
Clients gave me a bottle of champagne at the end which was very sweet! Bless their hearts!
Because I can put the marmorino straight on the lime render, the entire thing is quite cost effective even though most commercial marmorino applications are quite expensive. Window reveals were a pain in the ass though; I wasn't sure if corner beads were going to work so I built them all out by hand. Used the marshalltown round corner trowel to shape them. It worked pretty well and I think it looks good but my patience was tested. The problem with the plasterwork also being the paint job is that every move you make with the trowel has to be intentional because it's going to be visible. So you're not just thinking about shaping and straightening but also worrying about: "is this gonna look good?"
I'm not gonna lie, it was very stressful at times this being my first job and not wanting to mess up. I had some sleepless nights because no one taught me how to do this; I've had to figure it out myself and this was first real world execution. Near the end I got more comfortable because the first walls were finished and the clients liked it so that gave me a little more confidence. All in all, pretty happy with the job and looking forward to the next one.
Pics before and after (sorry I didn't upload here but there's a 10 pic cap)
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I render-floated the old brick with meager, hot-mixed lime mortar (1:4) with a little bit of sugar added to make the mix more plastic and re***d the set. I did most of it in one base coat and then finished it with a coarse, fat hot-mixed marmorino. In the large bedroom they wanted a deep blue. In the small bedroom they wanted white. In the hallway I sponge floated the base coat (budget reasons).
I also removed the chimney for them and arranged for a plumber to clean up the mess of pipe work in the small bedroom. Also did some patchwork on the ceiling.
Clients gave me a bottle of champagne at the end which was very sweet! Bless their hearts!
Because I can put the marmorino straight on the lime render, the entire thing is quite cost effective even though most commercial marmorino applications are quite expensive. Window reveals were a pain in the ass though; I wasn't sure if corner beads were going to work so I built them all out by hand. Used the marshalltown round corner trowel to shape them. It worked pretty well and I think it looks good but my patience was tested. The problem with the plasterwork also being the paint job is that every move you make with the trowel has to be intentional because it's going to be visible. So you're not just thinking about shaping and straightening but also worrying about: "is this gonna look good?"
I'm not gonna lie, it was very stressful at times this being my first job and not wanting to mess up. I had some sleepless nights because no one taught me how to do this; I've had to figure it out myself and this was first real world execution. Near the end I got more comfortable because the first walls were finished and the clients liked it so that gave me a little more confidence. All in all, pretty happy with the job and looking forward to the next one.
Pics before and after (sorry I didn't upload here but there's a 10 pic cap)
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