The Bierkeller, Part 5 - Done!

The beer cellar has come on massively since the last update. In the past two weeks, I painted the lime plaster, repointed another section of wall and built up the floor. That was done by last Monday, and I spent an hour just sitting in there, with a cold Galway Hooker Irish Pale Ale, taking a moment to just think about next steps.

But what was done this past two weeks? You can see a video here, or keep scrolling for nice photos. First, I cleaned back the floor, again, to get a relatively even surface, and then i painted the lime plaster areas with a highly breathable silicate paint.

Then last Friday week, I began with the floor construction. I hauled 2 tonnes of gravel in by hand - well, with buckets -  followed by almost of tonne of crushed stone. 

I laid a layer of geotextile to separate the gravel (actually, more like graded pebbles, with no sand content), from the crushed stone layer.

Then started the layer of compressed crushed stone.

This all took longer than expected, and there was a party to go to, so it was parked at that stage. On Saturday morning, I scavenged the barn to get as many bricks as I could find for the floor and, with the help of my son, gave them a good clean with a pressure washer.

Laying the bricks alone also took longer than I thought, and by six in the evening, I'd only gotten this far. At this stage, a neighbour who is renovating the house next door dropped by with beer, so that was that for the day!

Next morning (not too early) I decided I wanted to get this done, so put the skates on with a nice piece of hickory, and by 6 in the evening, had the brick part of the floor complete.

Essentially, I didn't have enough brick to do the complete floor, as I wanted, but our friend Sace, who always has good ideas, suggested wood to fill the gaps. We originally considered going to a sawmill to get thick fir boards, but given we had so many old boards in the barn, it made more economic sense to reuse them. On Monday evening, a few suitable boards were found and given the cleaning treatment with my trusty Makita brush sander.

Battens were laid and leveled on the crushed stone, at the appropriate depth, and the cleaned boards screwed to them, forming a floating raft that turned out to be very stable.

And it was done!

All that remained was to fit it out and get the beer in there! Yesterday I finished assembling and started stocking the shelves.

 And here's a reminder of how it looked when we bought the house.

There's even a special place for my Grandad's old crown cork opener.

The Bierkeller, Part 4

I uploaded this video over a week ago, before going away on business (and beer) for the week, but forgot to post it here. But that's ok, as nothing much has changed in the few days I've been back, except the floor is now cleared and I've primed the plastered parts with potassium silicate. Potassium silicate (Kaliwasserglas) is what we used to prime and fix the clay ceilings before painting with a silicate-based paint, so I thought it would make sense to do the same here. The idea is that the plaster should remain completely breathable.

So, now I can delete the video I made today...

The Bierkeller, Part 3

It's been slow and steady over the past couple of weeks, working in the cool of the cellar while it's been sweltering outside. The stone wall on the right has been fully repointed following the sandblasting.

Beginning repointing

Almost done!

On the left , we've decided to partially plaster the wall, as it's just too much work to chip out and repoint. We'll use a lime plaster, so it is breathable, and will leave the bottom part exposed, with some wavy edges to make it a bit fancy-looking, much like I did in cellar 4.

Partially repointed bottom half.

 But the biggest fun was the floor. After we removed the concrete floor a couple of years ago, we thought it was just stone scree and clay underneath. A few weeks ago, we found a couple of big sandstone slabs, and this past week, we found more, suggesting that the original floor was still intact. Well, only one way to find out: do an excavation. Actually, more like just cleaning back.

The original floor was indeed still there, but it was very uneven, made of several large (the biggest 1.2 x 0.9 metres) sandstone slabs to the left and right, limestone blocks in the middle, and lots of clay in between. At some stage, this was covered with a stamped clay floor, perhaps because the stones were settling and becoming uneven, and later still, the concrete floor.

Patches of sand represent stones that were shattered.

 One curious feature was what looked liek a pit with a wooden lid, but in fact, it was just a layer of broken tiles, not very deep, with a thin layer of wood on top. Perhaps it was a drain at some stage, bu as said, it was no deeper than the subsoil under the large slabs.

Right now, the slabs have all been lifted, though moving the large ones is a bit difficult. The repointing is complete, as far as I want to go at least, so it's ready for plastering. Once that's done, the floor can be prepared, but I'll return to that in a later blog post.

As it looks today.

Meanwhile, here's a video update.

The Bierkeller, Part 2

Last Saturday I got up bright and early to collect a compressor from our friend, Sace, and get started with a small sandblasting pistol I bought online for €22. 3 hours, and several coffees later, I managed to prep, suit up and make a start.

My experience with the big blaster we used elsewhere in the house was excellent, but full protection is an absolute must, so it was back to doing Breaking Bad impressions again.

The thing about htis blaster is that it's relatively low pressure, and more geared towards precise work, like taking paint of bits of furniture, or rust removal. It's not quite cut out for cleaning clay and plaster off large stone wall surface. But, I persevered, and got three of the four walls done. Here's a before and after shot.

Believe it or not, there is a difference! Look down the bottom right for the biggest differences! Anyway, it's ok, and we can move on to repointing these parts soon.

Meanwhile, here's a before and after video.

The Bierkeller, Part 1

Just a video for now, to document how the future beer cellar started out. If I'm lucky, we may even finish it sometime this year!