Keeping the cold out - thermal plaster

Finally the spring arrived and the weather started to warm up our cold and forgotten house. The sun beaming on stone walls and peeking in though windows started raising the temperatures again. Previously much anticipated thermal plastering works (see previous post) had been pushed to end of April in hope that we will have warm spring. Again after few delays works were started in the middle of May.

Over the course of next couple of weeks the Resthunt thermal plaster was applied to all external walls at a thickness of approximately 20-30mm, depending on stone surface beneath. As an addition rough cut lime slabs were added to show the original materials and add character. All plaster was applied by hand and for more rustic texture "glove" method was used. Not fully sure if this is the correct term in English but the idea is that plaster is thrown onto the wall and smoothed down by hand or a trowel leaving various raised smooth bumps.

The thermal plaster was covered with thin layer of lime finishing plaster.

During the process we received updates from the tradesmen and also family and had some overview of what was going on but for full update and to see it with our own eyes we had to wait until end of May when we could go to the house again.

The mess that was now covering the house and in addition to covered furniture and building materials we now also had fine lime dust all over the house and a massive mound of unused plaster still left. Something must have been off with the calculations or perhaps bigger allowances were made for crevices in the walls. Anyways we had a lot of spare that can be used in the future for other renovation works. The house was even more unliveable now than at Christmas but here was one nice thing - THE WALLS. They exceeded all our expectations and although still damp and ivory colour, they lit up the rooms and gave warmth by just looking at them.

Although sad still not being able to spend time there we saw improvement of the walls over the coming week and the change in internal atmosphere with regular heating. The walls were drying and starting to turn from ivory to white. Decision was made - this is how we want the rest of the house to be. As soon as we can prepare ground, all internal plasterboard walls will be covered with lime plaster!