New Old Walls
Still working on the kitchen walls. The way they did the plaster walls in the house was they used 1X8 T&G redwood planks and then milled dove-tail grooves in them every 2 inches. As the plaster was applied to the boards it filled the grooves and created the plaster keys.
Back in the 20s when the house was cut up in to apartments they put up a few partitions and added a door. The also added a Murphy Bed to one wall. The bed opened on the dining room side. When it was removed during the 70s someone did a really crappy job of fixing the hole. I'm not even sure what they were trying to do.
Anyway, I was able to tell where the door used to be and how wide it was once I got down to the original floor. I've just about got it closed up and back the way it was. I used some salvaged 1X8 and 1X10 redwood planks and milled new boards myself with the dove-tail grooves. I also used salvaged redwood beadboard on the bottom part and salvaged redwood 2X4s to frame the wall.
It took a lot of boards. There is in the doorway from the Murphy bed (see pictures), a doorway in to the back parlor, and a second door on to the porch. Each entry needed boards on both sides to close it up. I thought I was going to burn up my little router running all of the wood. The router held up but I think the bit is toast.
Still some more work to do. I hope to start plastering in a few weeks.
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4 comments:
Wow, that's so ambitious. It must have been expensive to use redwood. I've mostly heard of people using wire mesh for repairs. Are you going to use a traditional 3 coat plaster? I wanted to try some plastering myself, I haven't had the guts to try it yet. I think houses in 1895 had a horse hair brown coat, and a lime top coat, that took up to a year to dry.
Not quite as ambitious as it may sound. I dismantled a 2 story 1920s addition that was made entirely of redwood. I was able to salvage zillions of planks, 2X4s, 2X10, etc. I removed it for a number of reasons, but mainly so I could use the wood in the restoration of the home.
I guess all the houses in your neighbourhood were made with redwood, considering your geography. I'd love to see the after photos, since I'm doing some plaster repair myself. I can understand taking the addition off for the materials, redwood is pricey these days. I want to learn to plaster, enough to fix the walls on our house, it's hard to even find plaster, without going to a specialty store.
My walls are the basic lime and sand plaster but I am repairing with the three stage plaster because that is all I know how to do. I learned from a guy named Dave Worley who made a great How-To PDF sheet for basic plaster repair. I did my bathroom with it and it works great. he told me I could give it to anyone so I keep it on my web site. I had to get the plaster at a building supply store.
http://windsweptsoftware.com/myhouse/plasterrepair.pdf
Grex
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