Internal Stone Walls

[pdg87]

Hi GRB,

Thanks for the information. Did you lime render your stone walls?

Also how does your fire surround look now, any pictures? I guess I could render it all and put a decorative Oak lintel in. It seems a waste of something original and so substantial, however I am not keen on the colour/finish of the surround as is.

 

[mivec]

We've used the flooring throughout the dining room which is the whole of the footprint to the original part of the house, the entrance area is in the corner of the room. The plan is to continue the same floor into the kitchen which is in a Victorian extension. The kitchen currently has a slate floor, another job for another day!

The original floor is long gone and it is now a concrete slab with with underfloor heating, hence the need to strip the modern plaster from the outside walls and let them breath.

The slabs are new calibrated limestone outdoor paving. We spent ages looking into different options and these seemed the best. As I said there is nothing of the original floor remaining so nothing to follow. We didn't want reclaimed as this would imply it was original. New English yorkstone seemed a bit hit and miss with quality and to buy it at the consistent thickness we needed was very expensive.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

I wouldn't be surprised if that fire surround was originally left as bare stone. It appears to need a (fairly small and only slightly-projecting) mantel shelf, and would look a lot better against a plastered wall (depending what colour you paint the plaster)

 

[GRB]

Hi pdg87,

Yes we lime plastered the walls, and limewashed them, but left the stone fire surrounds as stone. The surrounds project out from the plastered walls by about 10mm. The stone surrounds had several coats of paint and wood effect stain (dark brown, I think to look like mahogany) and we used Kling-Strip from http://www.stripperspaintremovers.com which worked an absolute treat - the stone is as clean as new apart from a few burnt areas. Unfortunately the only photos I have are old fashioned prints and I don't have a scanner.

 

[Moo]

If you have a half-decent phone (or even a proper camera), you can achieve a pretty good copy of a photographic print.

(I thought our daughter must have had access to a very superior scanner when she posted some old family photos on Facebook, but it turned out that she'd simply used her smartphone.)

 

[masochists-r-us]

Random rubble stone was never exposed in houses.

This was born out when we unearthed an original 9ft inglenook fireplace that had been filled with rubble and bricked up many years ago. The scooped out seat on one side and what was left of a cupboard still had the remains of very old lime plaster and faint traces of paint, although most of it was hanging off.
We are assuming that the stone jambs would not have been plastered and the side view of the large quoins would have been left bare too. If anyone knows any different, please let me know as we're getting the room plastered next week.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

I thought I'd seen a photo of your fireplace on here recently, Masochists, but I can't seem to find it.
If the quoins and fire surround project significantly beyond the general rubble wall face, it's likely they were exposed, otherwise it's very unlikely that the plaster dived down from its general surface line to leave them exposed.

 

[MdB]

Where's MdB? He has exposed internal stone walls, and although not perhaps authentic, they look very nice.

I agree with you on this one zebra,Mdb's stone walls may not be to everyones taste but I think he's done a great job lime pointing them and I love them

I've been walking the South Downs Way. 116.3 miles completed - Winchester to Eastbourne along the South Downs Way - in 7 days. 4835m climbed and 11500 kcal burnt...

... x7 full English consumed, 30+ pints drunk (I lost count) and +3kg weight gain. Ho Hum...



Bare stone vs Render - a rather contentious subject. I suggest reading through this thread:
http://www.periodproperty.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=11069

I'll post some more pics when I have a moment.

 

[masochists-r-us]

I thought I'd seen a photo of your fireplace on here recently, Masochists, but I can't seem to find it.
If the quoins and fire surround project significantly beyond the general rubble wall face, it's likely they were exposed, otherwise it's very unlikely that the plaster dived down from its general surface line to leave them exposed.

Hi Gareth,
Took me a while as well as how to work out to upload a new photo via photobucket. Anyway, here it is. Guess you can see it clearly has been completely plastered down the sides in the past, but it looks as the the Jambs were exposed also on the basis that they are chamfered ? We're are having a lime mortar repair to the bottom two that were smashed to key in a brick wall when the fireplace was closed up in the 1960's.You may recall you provided advice about how to overcome the difficulties I was having with our CO as the prev owners had cut the original bressumer in half to accomodate a doorway. Good news was, we were allowed to install a new bressumer and re-open the original doorway which we found so the fireplace is now on its way back to its former glory. Many thanks for that.

 

[tobydog]

Hi pdg87. I'm a bit late to this thread but (and I stand to be totally corrected) I don't think that shot blasting and old houses generally go hand in hand. The reason you couldn't get colour back to your stone was probably because you had done the equivalent of sanding done paintwork and had taken the old face of them. Worth bearing in mind for the future for most surfaces, not just for walls. I agree with the plaster route.

 

[MdB]

A few more points

• Historically walls would have been plastered.
• Now, exposed stone is valued by the general populace - i.e. it adds value to your home.
• You can always plaster exposed stone but you can't put back historical render once removed.
• Repointing can be done both well and badly. Bad can be really bad. Well can be really good and isn't difficult but it does take a lot of time - i.e. cost.
• Dust doesn't seem to be a major problem with exposed stone for us.
• When the stone is damp for pointing, you will probably prefer its look to when it is dry. Do not think that varnish or other finish is a solution to this. You will regret it.
• If you want to live in a museum then rerender. If you want to live in home that has a wall finish you like, then do what you prefer. (unless listed - then follow CO's advice)

and a few more pictures

 

[Zebra]

30+ pints drunk

Hello MdB, sounds like you earned them.

 

[pdg87]

Looks good that mdb, although the stone looks a lot 'nicer' than the random stone used in mine.

Thanks again for the comments, will keep updated with how it looks in the end

 

[MdB]

Looks good that mdb, although the stone looks a lot 'nicer' than the random stone used in mine.

Ha, ha. No.

Our stone is absolute rubbish. You have to try very hard to find worse stone and we have bricks and odd bits of wood all over the place. Its called character and you have to pay extra to get it

This is what it looked like before clean up.

and this after clean up. Not really very encouraging.

You probably won't believe me when I say that this was probably the best condition of any of our walls. Yours looks like it is in far better state.

It is only once repointed that it starts to look good.

I strongly suggest repointing a bit yourself in lime using a plasters small tool to see if you like the finish. I bet you do.

 

[pdg87]

Great thanks for the photos mdb, did you use anything in particular to clean up the brick work?

 

[MdB]

Great thanks for the photos mdb, did you use anything in particular to clean up the brick work?

Hook knife (now very blunt), old screwdriver (now has point instead of flat), degrouting tool (now very blunt), wire brush and Henry.

 

[GRB]

After I raked out the joints and scraped most of the old mortar off the faces, I washed the stones down starting from the top. They were washed with warm water mixed with sugar soap and scrubbed with a wire brush. When I had done a manageable amount I then used warm clean water and sponged down the faces to clean off the mucky water. I even used a dry sponge then to dab the faces dry(ish). Its a slow and messy process but it worked - this way wouldn't work though if you had a carpet down that you wanted to keep!

 

[pdg87]

Thanks for the information - very helpful. I might do a bit more work on them, decided I wont be keeping them all stone, but may leave a section of stone