A Visible Difference

A Visible Difference

The unbelievably beautiful plasterwork continued apace!

Jeremy and Josh continue with the second coat:

 

And then, inbetween – we put beautiful stable doors in the north end of the house. We used Devonshire Windows for this installation. They employ some excellent people – Matt Aplin who did the survey and designed extremely clever cills for the bottom of the doors that slot into the middle of the thresholds preventing water from blowing in from underneath. Also these have an upstand on the sides for the same purpose.

And their installers did an excellent job. Managing to finish 15 minutes before the snow began!

The doors are very smart.

 

Then Jeremy and Josh came back. But before that, over Christmas, we got a chance to work with them to ‘Reinvent the old in light of the new’. My favourite pastime!

And over Christmas I also started sanding our window cills. The grain in the lacewood is just fantastic:

 

Jeremy wasn’t very happy with the sand he’s been able to find for the top coat of his lime plaster. So he and I spent a little time googling around and found this:

 

Recycled crushed glass. Amazing what you find when you Google ‘200 micron’. It is the same price as the fine sand that Jeremy had been using and unlike that sand, it is completely dry. There is only one fundamental difference if you use this instead of sand.

Lime plaster normally has a warm, creamy colour. Or should I say, it has that beige/magnolia colour that I can’t stand. I have a horror of what was the holy trinity of decorating in the 70’s – Magnolia walls with wood chip wallpaper and artex ceilings. Bleh. So you can imagine my delight when I saw that this crushed glass is the most elegant and glamorous shade of green.

 

Not to mention the beautiful rounded corners that Jeremy and Josh make. It almost looks folded into the inner corners of the windows and doors.

 

Jeremy’s Lime plaster does dry quite a lot closer to white, but as it is likely we are going to paint, I’m now decided on this beautiful earth green that you see in the previous photograph. The window to the left of the cooker has a beam above it that we’ve had sitting outside for about 2 years and that aged wood beam colour can be achieved with a Blanchon wood agent. So all exposed parts of the frame and the rafters will probably go that colour. I never would have thought of this green as a colour and now I’m in love with it. A lucky inspiration for us and Jeremy is delighted I took a chance on it, as he now has a recycled product he can use instead of one that is dredged out of rivers and quarries.

Reinventing the old in light of the new. This is what it looks like. Lucky us!










4 Responses »

    • Thanks, Mike. But we really have you, Roderick James Architects and Carpenter Oak to thank for giving us a chance to experience the best learning curve ever.

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