As I wanted to keep this house in the most natural way I could (the way it was originally built) I had to learn about such things as clay plasters. I did some research before about how to make it but as we know the practice is most important thing in this case . There are many different types of clay and the mix ratio is a key to get a right one. If you don't get a right mix clay tends to crack too much and may fall of the wall as result. So the ratio is never the same, it will depend on how much sand is in it. You need to remember that a clay even lying in the ground next to another portion of clay may have totally different plastic features. You need a couple of samples before you apply them on desire surface.
There is no a clay pit near to my house so I had to bring it from the other place. At this time I had no car yet so it was quite hard carrying it up to the hill couple of times however this time I had a friend with me to help.
We brought couple buckets of clay and sand then we filtered it out from some organic stuff, roots, stones etc... We managed to find two kinds of clay, an orange one (my favorite btw) and a gray one which is considered as a very strong type of clay.
I found a lots of perfectly, dried straw in my barn, looks like it had been lying there for years but the animals they were breeding here before never ate it. I cut it with a scissors as did not have anything else and started preparing my first plaster mix. My ration was like 1 portion of clay to about 3-4 portions of sand and a lots of straw. The clay needs to be like a glue for gluing the fibers.
Damaged wall in my second bedroom.
There was a big hole on the wall in my second bedroom, it looked like some moisture was cause of this crack so I took it off, cleaned it well and applied the new clay plaster.
The reason why I did "cuts" like this is that clay will tend to crack less and the next layer will stick easier as it will have an attach point. Once it dries out (depends on the temperature and climate - the longer drying time the better) it will be finished with a lime mortar or a mix of clay and lime plaster.
An old entrance door.
People told me to take it off, throw it away and buy a new one but it could be just too easy and I wouldn't be myself not trying to give it a new life. I used a sand paper to clean the wood then painted it with linseed oil and the effect was stunning.
I'll will never replace them. I guess a new door like this one would cost me a lots of $$$$ and it is a history of this house. I had to be stupid to throw such a treasure.
Obviously it needs a bit of work but the satisfaction that comes from the final effect is incomparable with anything.
In the end I changed the handle. I managed to find almost the same "retro-looking one" on the internet however I have no picture of it to show you right now.
Holes in the floor
As there were some leaks through the roof for last 25 years, some desks on the floor were rotten. It was quite dangerous to step on one of them as in the worst case scenario you could end up at the bottom floor (an old barn).
Actually this is quite interesting story of why local people were building houses in this way.
There is a barn at the bottom floor and living room above it, so literally you can see through the gaps in the floor what is underneath. The reason is that animals where warming up upper floor with their breaths so basically you had a natural heating system during strong winters. It was a smart one, wasn't it?
I had a luck as I found perfectly preserved floor desks while cleaning stuff on the attic. Looks like someone prepared them to replace this old floor in the past and they have been lying there for ages until today.
At the end of the day I started cleaning an old beam. My hands were so sore that I almost did not feel them ... they never got used to such hard work like this before...
tbc...
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