Mar 31

We have been working on the interior finish plaster for just over a week now.. We are really happy with the progress! Here is our recipe we used for south and East walls. Our bedroom was a bit different color combo. We experimented with different fibers a bit and went back to good ‘ol horse manure, there is a reason it has been used for YEARS and YEARS for plasters.. And no it doesn’t stink once it dries.. The straw was hard to get on thin even after very fine filtering.. We bought Kaolin Clay from the pottery store in Victoria since it is light colored and doesn’t need any filtering, filtering our own clay through a window screen takes a very very long time! We started with a washed sand and then went down to an even finer washed masonry sand.. works even better. We have about 3 more days to finish the interior plaster, wahoo!

6 L Kaolin Clay
9 L Fine Masonry Sand filtered through window screen
1.5 L Calcium Carbonate
3 L horse manure or straw filtered through 1/8 screen (dry if doing a light color like this)
225 ml yellow iron oxide
30 ml brown Sierra coloring
some mixes we also used flour paste and some a capful of linseed oil

Mar 25
Tadelakt Shower
icon1 Vision | icon2 CDN_Family | icon4 03 25th, 2011| icon32 Comments »

I can’t believe it’s almost been a month since I last posted!!! WOW.. lots has been going on here thats for sure! We have been making amazing progress and are so close to moving in!! One of our big projects we have been working on is the Tadelakt shower/minitub. Tadelakt definition from Wikipedia… :)

Tadelakt or Tadellakt is a bright, nearly waterproof lime plaster which can be used on the inside of buildings and on the outside. It is the traditional coating of the palaces, hammams and bathrooms of the riads in Morocco. Its traditional application includes being polished with a river stone and treated with a soft soap to acquire its final appearance and water resistance. Tadelakt has a luxurious, soft aspect with undulations due to the work of the artisans who finish it; in certain installations, it is suitable for making bathtubs, showers, and washbasins and confers great decorative capacities. Traditionally, tadelakt is produced with the lime of the area of Marrakech.

Tadelakt is beautiful and SUPER labor intensive!!! Here are some pictures of our progress.. First came the tub base made out of wood and reinforced with metal lath. Then we poured a concrete shower base in two layers with an EPDM waterproof membrane along the bottom and up the sides. Then came 2 lime plaster coats then the final pigmented lime plaster.. Which is then polished with a stone and soap.. Gord Baird who lives in an amazing cob home and has his own Tadelakt shower got us going on ours and Curtis has been polishing away since then!

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