Thursday 20 October 2011

More Staircase Tower

I wrote last week about doing the chaux chanvre at the top of the staircase tower.

The other walls of the tower need finishing too, and most of this is being done the same way we finished one of the staircase walls last year, even down to the amount of dust created by removing the old render.

The old render is removed to expose all the
stones to a depth of about 3cm
A mixture of chaux and red sand is applied
in a layer thick enough to cover all but the
most protruding stones
Once the chaux/sand mixture has been allowed
to dry slightly (about 12 hours), it is brushed back
with a wire brush to expose however much of
the stone you want to see.
We have now started on the other walls: there are two walls on the staircase that need the same treatment, and teo walls we will have covered in chaux chanvre. Although this means that the staircase walls will not all be finished the same, it appears that this is the way the walls were originally done and it will be nice to give a nod to the age (and complexity) of the building.

Simon

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! The finished product looks fab.

SP

Pollygarter said...

That's a lovely colour! We're looking for a supplier of red sand... where does yours come from?

Simon said...

SP - we're happy, but not as happy as we will be when all the walls are done!! Dust free *sigh*...

PG: CMC in Yzeures s/Creuse. You have to take your own trailer - they will deliver, but it adds a huge amount to the cost.

Anonymous said...

Hi there! Great site and great work! I'm rebuilding a house myself in the Aveyron. I love working with chaux (It's so easy), but for the lie of me I cannot find red sand anywhere. Where did you find it?

Simon said...

Anon- welcome to the blog. We're lucky, the local CMC stocks red sand. they do their own sand and gravel extraction, but I don't know if it comes out of the river here - most of the sand is sandy coloured rather than red.

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