miniandrew
New Member
Hi folks,
I'm a regular user of forums for such drab things as helping people in debt, but I'm just moved in to a new house and it's an old 1860's coach-house which needs some work to it and I need some pointers as to what I need to look out for from builders.
Experienced people like you on here are invaluable as they are on the sites I frequent like the consumer action group, so I do hope you don't mind me gate-crashing the site to get this guidance?
For those who don't know, a coach-house was used by visitors to a manor house of some kind and their horse drawn coaches were brought into what we would call a 'garage' with a pit in the floor for inspecting under the carriages.
The people who we bought from moved in 25yrs ago and the 'garage' still had its original wooden doors 9ft sq x 2 and a pit, but they replaced the damaged wood doors and bricked them up behind to create an internal wall making the garage a living room. They cleaned up all the brick walls by getting someone to run over them with an angle grinder leaving scoured circular marks all over the bricks and left not a straight flat wall in the place.
During our search for a property we favoured older barn conversions and oasts, but as they were located generally in the countryside away from the grandchildren we decided to stay closer to the city and found this old place.
With the flavour of the barn conversions still in our minds thought we'd like to to add some character back into this place and bring in a few ideas from the barns.
Not wishing to make a coach house into a look-a-like barn when it's not a barn we decided to plaster over these rugged walls (and it's a shame because natural yellow brick looks nice but it's so dark in here we have to lighten it up) and add a few oak beams .
This brings me to my question:
I had a guy come and describe how plastering the walls and adding oak beams/panels/planks (whatever you call them) about 5-6" wide floor/skirting to ceiling and a few around the door we needed to take in to account the environment the room takes with heating etc and the plastering finish can be different accordingly as timber shrinks, plastering cracks and so on.
So, we have a 30sq mtr room, we are floor tiling with Travatine natural tumbled stone with underfloor heating and we are adding a log burner. The 9ft sq 'doors' are being replaced by windows.
The walls will be plastered and in all 7 floor to ceiling (8-9ft) beams of approximately 5-6 " wide projecting some 2" from the surface in grade B light oak will be added with a few added struts at an angle of some 60 degrees.
Should I expect the plasterer/builder to afix the beams first to the walls and then plaster up to the beams or, given the materials/heating/shrinkage/movement etc., plaster the whole wall first then afixing the beams in your learned opinions?
What kind of materials should I expect them to use for the plastering?
I've read numerous threads on here of the techniques some of you have discussed on plastering in barn conversions, but this is not quite a barn conversion as we are adding the older wood ourselves rather than using original beams in place already.
I need to reassure myself that whoever is spinning me the details of how they will be doing this job actually knows what he/she is doing.
Your advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
Andrew.
I'm a regular user of forums for such drab things as helping people in debt, but I'm just moved in to a new house and it's an old 1860's coach-house which needs some work to it and I need some pointers as to what I need to look out for from builders.
Experienced people like you on here are invaluable as they are on the sites I frequent like the consumer action group, so I do hope you don't mind me gate-crashing the site to get this guidance?
For those who don't know, a coach-house was used by visitors to a manor house of some kind and their horse drawn coaches were brought into what we would call a 'garage' with a pit in the floor for inspecting under the carriages.
The people who we bought from moved in 25yrs ago and the 'garage' still had its original wooden doors 9ft sq x 2 and a pit, but they replaced the damaged wood doors and bricked them up behind to create an internal wall making the garage a living room. They cleaned up all the brick walls by getting someone to run over them with an angle grinder leaving scoured circular marks all over the bricks and left not a straight flat wall in the place.
During our search for a property we favoured older barn conversions and oasts, but as they were located generally in the countryside away from the grandchildren we decided to stay closer to the city and found this old place.
With the flavour of the barn conversions still in our minds thought we'd like to to add some character back into this place and bring in a few ideas from the barns.
Not wishing to make a coach house into a look-a-like barn when it's not a barn we decided to plaster over these rugged walls (and it's a shame because natural yellow brick looks nice but it's so dark in here we have to lighten it up) and add a few oak beams .
This brings me to my question:
I had a guy come and describe how plastering the walls and adding oak beams/panels/planks (whatever you call them) about 5-6" wide floor/skirting to ceiling and a few around the door we needed to take in to account the environment the room takes with heating etc and the plastering finish can be different accordingly as timber shrinks, plastering cracks and so on.
So, we have a 30sq mtr room, we are floor tiling with Travatine natural tumbled stone with underfloor heating and we are adding a log burner. The 9ft sq 'doors' are being replaced by windows.
The walls will be plastered and in all 7 floor to ceiling (8-9ft) beams of approximately 5-6 " wide projecting some 2" from the surface in grade B light oak will be added with a few added struts at an angle of some 60 degrees.
Should I expect the plasterer/builder to afix the beams first to the walls and then plaster up to the beams or, given the materials/heating/shrinkage/movement etc., plaster the whole wall first then afixing the beams in your learned opinions?
What kind of materials should I expect them to use for the plastering?
I've read numerous threads on here of the techniques some of you have discussed on plastering in barn conversions, but this is not quite a barn conversion as we are adding the older wood ourselves rather than using original beams in place already.
I need to reassure myself that whoever is spinning me the details of how they will be doing this job actually knows what he/she is doing.
Your advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
Andrew.
