Pleased with works!

[noj]

It's going to look absolutely fabulous!

 

[Penners]

I did the right thing in holding out.

That's not something that you hear women say much, these days. Good girl, Joce. :wink:

I deliberately didn't show the naked stone house as I know many would have thought "keep it that way", but it really wasn't right architecturally for the period to have a formal building in naked rubble stone

Hell no! It would have been utterly wrong for that building - the stonework was obviously never intended to be seen. You've done absolutely the right thing, and it's great to hear how pleased an excited you are about it.

I can't wait to see photos of the final, finished result!

 

[JoceAndChris]

xxxxxxx

Plastic- really wanted to get a good analysis of technique today but it was a manic day, we ran out of water here at BC so works were largely abandoned whilst the Skillies boys towed off my bowser to go and fill it up. I will film Phil in action though.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Williams was obliged to write a letter or two and clear up some odd bits of work. At last, some time past midnight, he was disposed to turn in, and he put out his lamp after lighting his bedroom candle. The picture lay face upwards on the table where the last man who looked at it had put it, and it caught his eye as he turned the lamp down. What he saw made him very nearly drop the candle on the floor, and he declares now if he had been left in the dark at that moment he would have had a fit. But, as that did not happen, he was able to put down the light on the table and take a good look at the picture. It was indubitable—rankly impossible, no doubt, but absolutely certain. In the middle of the lawn in front of the unknown house there was a figure where no figure had been at five o’clock that afternoon. It was crawling on all fours towards the house, and it was muffled in a strange black garment with a white cross on the back.
M R James, "The Mezzotint"

 

[Flyfisher]

That's looking very good Joce and well worth waiting until you'd found the right people by the look of things. I also agree about replacing the render. While it's interesting to see what's underneath, the brick/stonework looks 'too busy' to leave exposed and somehow detracts from the overall design - to me anyway. It's going to look fabulous when finished, as well as being good for the building.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Thanks Flyfisher! Skillies asked today why I chose them and really why was I going to all this expense and trouble to have it done when most people would have infilled all the cracks with more cement, and of course what I really wanted to say was that it was all the kind people and period property boffins on PPUKe who pointed me in the right direction in the first place. But I couldn't, I just mentioned friends and having good advice. But from damp injections, where we started out ( resisting them fortunately) to this! What a great journey!!

Gareth!!! I will haunt you know.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

we ran out of water here at BC so works were largely abandoned whilst the Skillies boys towed off my bowser to go and fill it up.

Gosh--that is true service for you Joce---xx

 

[JoceAndChris]

I know!! And they taught me how to use Chris's gun so I could despatch my dying cockerel. And they're sneaking in a bit of window repair!! 8)

 

[FamilyWiggs]

It just goes to show how motivational good bacon butties, posh biscuits, delicious cakes and proper tea can be for real workmen.

That and the occasional topless sunbathing I understanding you are indulging in... 8)

 

[Penners]

You've had those binoculars out again, haven't you, FW?!

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Absolutely not.

But I am friends with the guys who target the Google statellite... :wink:

 

[JoceAndChris]

:lol:

 

[Matt Green]

The lighting in that photo matches the quote perfectly Gareth.

 

[worms]

I know!! And they taught me how to use Chris's gun so I could despatch my dying cockerel. And they're sneaking in a bit of window repair!! 8)

I hope that learning how to use the gun and the need to repair the windows are not related?

 

[jocelyn plummer]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[JoceAndChris]

:lol: My aim is poor but not that poor!


All quiet here today; the master plasterer booked a week off and wouldn't let the boys continue alone. We're now making decisions as to the size and variance of the lining out- the aim is the plaster imitates the more formal ashlar finish seen on stone houses in Bath, Stamford, and elsewhere. There are extremely few houses locally that have a scored render imitating this, and absolutely none that I know of in good condition and limewashed. In fact the only building I know of in the country that looks like this is Nigel's and he went for even blocks, but my plasterer wants to do uneven.

Uneven

Even

 

[Feltwell]

Any idea if it was scored to imitate blocks originally Joce? The fact you say that practically no local houses had this makes me question if your house ever had it.

 

[JoceAndChris]

No, local houses HAD it where rubble stone was never intended to be seen but don't now- and where it survives, it's too poor to get any sense of how it looks. As to whether BC had it, impossible to say. It looks like BC was originally limewashed directly onto stone but then rendered. The lime render found was in such small fragments and so ruined by cement repair it can't be seen whether it was ever scored. But it is an authentic and smart finish for formal buildings of the period, it has LBC, and that's good enough for me.

Here's the colour we're thinking of - Naples by Rose of Jericho.

 

[Feltwell]

Fair enough. I'm with your plasterer, I'd go for uneven personally. As for colour - up to you! Looks quite pink in that photo, but that could be my monitor / the limewash being a bit thin.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

So hard isn't it Joce! At least you have a week's worth of different weather and light variations, that should help you decide!

Also, I think you probably already have a visual picture of the finished result in your mind, so try to focus on that rather than be pushed and pulled in different directions, you've pulled it off very successfully inside.
Have courage and let the house speak to you.xx