Limewash straight on stone

[Alex]

After pulling up the carpet and exposing the flagstones, we decided to start getting the cement and plaster off the walls, the place was dusty anyway. I was quite shocked to find that originally the cottage didn't have any lime plaster and there was limewash applied straight onto the internal stone walls. We have found this in a couple of other places in the house and I thought it was just a fluke. Are we the only people in the UK to have this ? I believe it was originally an iron workers cottage (well 2 actually, knocked together in the 60's or 70's) and we are not quite sure when it was built. Why did I spend weeks trying to get our diningroom walls smooth ?

Alex

 

[JohnB]

As I understand it from my tame conservation builder, stonework was just limewashed in poorer people's houses. Over the years it built up to quite a thick layer. The technique she uses, and taught me, to produce the same result but in one go, is to apply a thinnish coat of lime plaster by hand, working it well into the stone so it follows the uneven pattern of the walls. Then limewash it, although most of mine isn't limewashed yet. Everyone who has seen what she has done on her house, and what I've done on mine, seems impressed.

My walls were originally lime plastered, but as my aim is to do the job with minimal environmental impact, I want to use as little material as possible. It's cheaper too!

 

[worms]

A few thoughts:

Is it possible that the building had its "public" rooms properly plastered and the kitchen/scullery simply limewashed?

Was it always a residential building? If it had started life as something else (agricultural/industrial/storage) then converted it could have had an early internal surface, subsequently covered over.

It is limewash and not a slobbered lime coating? Previous thread on this here.

 

[Alex]

Thanks for the replies.

I thought it was just a fashionable way of doing things, a modern rustic thing, like the craze for stripped pine etc. I have had the books out this morning looking at the old black and white photo's of old cottages and yes I can see it in some. The link that Worms put on there was really interesting, I was beginning to wonder if it was just a local to me thing but I did have an idea that it would have just been in the homes of the really poor.

The cottage/s were always cottages, never converted from anything else. A tiny one up one down (which started its life as a one down/half up, then as we could see from the outside when we took the cement render off, a proper upstairs was added on in brick) and a much larger one up one down built on the side of the first one. Both in rubble stone but the larger one sometime later had a partition built across the middle of it downstairs to create a kitchen at sometime. Then the same upstairs to create two seperate bedrooms. As you have probably worked out for yourself Worms, there are not enough rooms to have any public rooms really but I know what you mean.

I have just realised, I could probably replaster the room for £50, if I use the same technique. Then having saved myself so much money, I could treat myself to readymade coloured limewash, this could go to my head.

 

[JohnB]

Here's what was produced by a professional in her own kitchen

and the unfinished effort by a group of beginners taught by aforementioned professional. It's only had one quick coat of limewash so far, as there are bits that need more work before it can be finished.

 

[Alex]

Hello again John.
We had made up our mind to do what you had suggested before you had suggested it. Like I said in yesterdays post, I have been going through the books (Small Rural Dwellings in Wales CADW, The Welsh House, I. C. Peate of Museum of Rural Life fame and the Welsh Cottage - Eurwyn Wiliam for the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales) and it seems to have been common for these low status cottages to have just been limewashed straight onto the rubblestone walls. Peate even mentions that some of these cottages had so many coats of limewash on their interior walls that it looked like a thin skim of plaster, so if it was good enough for the great man then its good enough for me.
Anyway, I am two thirds of the way down the first wall and yes it is like repointing only more so, I'm quite enjoying myself. We have found several layers of white limewash, the standard yellow ochre and a strange blue colour which we won't be having this time as its North East facing, so does look pretty cold in the winter. Will post some photo's when I can find the memory card reader. Thanks again John.

Alex

Edit P.S. No mention of slobbering (that word makes me smile) like Worms post so maybe it didn't have a name here in Wales, wasn't called that when it was applied to interior walls or maybe it has a different name in Welsh. Will ask next time I go to St Fagans.