July 2014 review

We're at the end of a good month for the Bauernhaus. Despite me being away for over a week, there was continued progress thanks to our brilliant plasterer. Not long after the last post, he put a second layer of plaster on the first floor ceilings, and instead of doing that with the aim of putting on a final, fine coat, he tried to make the base as smooth as possible, so we might be able to skip one more step. I think it worked. It's nicely shaped, though a little rough, but a once-over with a brush will give a nice texture which we can treat with a bonding undercoat and follow up with painting, or perhaps a slip plaster with colour we can paint on.

This has been done for the entire first floor, which is just fantastic. The beams were uncovered during the week, so we could get a real feel for it.  Skip to the bottom for a video, if you want a walkthrough!

Living room

Living room

First floor bedroom

First floor office ceiling

First floor landing

This week I also got back into building work after a week away on business, so I dived into plasterboard work, completing the kitchen ceiling and walls that required it, as well as the office, and some cable reorganising as I changed the lighting plans for the kitchen. The sockets are all ready too, so the kitchen is ready for final plastering, and of course, starting the floor.

 Up on the second level, the ceilings are still at the base coat stage, as it took a lot longer to dry up there, due to the fact there was no preexisting layer of clay plaster to help soak up the moisture.

As a side project, my wife started cleaning up the old window frame we want to install between the bedroom and the office (in the hole in the wall in the photo below).

Although I'd cleaned it with water, it was still rather dark and a little flakey (see
parrt on the right in the photo below), so with a special scraping tool and a Fein Multimaster, it's been brought down to the original wood, and looks the better for it. It will look great once it's oiled or waxed.

And speaking of old things, the former owners dropped by yesterday with this on their trailer.

It's a wash stand that used to be in one of the bedrooms of our house. They'd gotten it restored and gave it to us as payment for letting them store a trailer and log splitter in the barn for the last three years. Might use it for the bathroom!

And if all the above wasn't enough, here's another quick YouTube vid walk-through to show progress.

What a difference a week makes

I had to double-check that it is indeed only a week since I made those last videos. Since then, our plasterer has plastered over all the wall heating panels (easy job for him) and yesterday he and his mate spent about 11 hours pumping clay plaster onto ALL the ceilings. Back-breaking work in a sealed house (all the windows were covered in plastic), making it feel like a sauna. I was sweating and I was only prepping ceilings with mesh, and doing what I could to help.

When he started with the walls last Monday, it was an almost emotional experience to see a room suddenly transform. A real sign that we're on the downhill run to completion, with most of the shitty, dirty work behind us.

There's another small video at the bottom of this post, but now, a few highlights.

The living room is always a good indicator, and I think it looks great now with the base coat plaster on both the walls and ceilings.

The first floor bedroom looking similarly tidy.

It was a lot of effort on my wife's part to wrap each beam, but given the sloppy nature of clay plaster, definitely worth it, as we already invested a lot of time cleaning the beams.

Our plasterer did a test panel with one coat only, but given the varying depths and hence the uneven drying of the clay, it cracks. Not a big deal, as there'd still be a final coat of fine clay plaster to go, but the base coat will now go on in two stages, with the first one keyed as seen in the photos above.

 On the second floor, similar treatment for the walls, which are well cured now as they were done first.

There's a light switch hidden in the photo below.

And the top floor, west side is also done. The only plastering to do there.

All made possible with the plaster mixer/pumper/magic device.

What's important now is to air the place well, as it's going to take weeks for the clay plaster to dry.

Sadly, as I type, there's a storm raging outside, so we can't leave the windows open over night.

And in the spirit of the last post, a quick video view of the first floor, post-plastering.

Walkthrough, June 2014

I thought I'd try something new with this post, and use some videos to give a brief walkthrough of the house. Originally recorded to share with family only, I reckoned it's safe to make public, and give anyone interested a better idea of the layout of the house.

Recorded last Sunday (except the outside ones, which were recorded later), while the house was still nice and tidy after the Tag der Architektur, I've taken each floor separately, as well as a brief view of the outside. Slightly hungover from a party the night before, please forgive any stumbling over the English words for some things :) The pictures stuck on the walls were put there for Tag der Architektur, but as you'll see, i was quite useful for doing a before and after during the video.

If you find this useful, or if there are any aspects you'd like better explained by video, just leave a comment below. I'll do another set in a while after the initial plastering is complete.

You can watch the full playlist by clicking here, or take each one singly below (though I'd advise watching directly on YouTube to see a larger size.

The front

The back

The cellars

The first floor

The second floor

The third floor

Tag der Architektur 2014

Last Saturday was Tag der Architektur, and as part of that, our architects, Architekten Dorbath + Partner, asked if we would mind opening our house (well, building site) to a group as part of a four-site tour in this region. Organised by the regional Chamber of Architects, of which our principal architect, Herr Keller, is Chair for our district, they thought our house would be interesting as it is a work in progress, a protected structure, we're doing most of it ourselves and stuff like the wall heating is still visible.

Though still in the midst of prepping for plastering, we took a few hours out on Saturday morning to really clean out the place, put boards down so people could walk in safety, cordon off some areas and stick "before" photos on the wall. Not to mention setting up a coffee and beer bar!

The bar!

Living room hasn't been so clean in years!

My wife even set up a small display of things we found during the course of the renovation. A US army mess tin knife. Some coins. A bullet. lots of nails and iron mongery, and my favourite, the front page of a Heidelberg newspaper from 1937.

A bit later than planned, we were faced with 20 or 25 people standing in our living room (itself a good structural test!), with Herr Keller giving a nice intro to the history of our project. Then they were let loose!

I have to say, I was a bit nervous about this beforehand, but it was lovely to invite a bunch of clearly interested people in and to get nice comments. Some also had old houses, so there were encouraging words and plenty of questions.

Even the kitchen was looking good.

Herr Keller giving the intro.

In an attempt to offer a bit of Irish hospitality, we also had some of my home brewed beers on offer. Not many had a chance to try, as they were under time pressure to get to the final site, but I was very pleased when one old lady popped back in when she heard there was beer on offer. She explained her deceased husband was a Braumeister, and the last Malster in Mosbach, and that he would have liked my beer. Can't ask for a nicer compliment than that.

And then they were gone.

And speaking of beer, a rather nice surprise was being presented with a pack of one of my favourite beers, Hopfenstopfer Citra Pale ale, as a token of gratitude. The other half of our architect team, Uwe Krück, was clearly also reading my other blog! Hi Uwe! :)

All in all, a nice thing to do, and they're all welcome back any time to see it progress.

ADDENDUM

We got a nice mention in Tuesday morning's Rhine-Neckar-Zeitung, in a piece about the Tag der Architektur.

And a professional translation thanks to Dörthe, a German in Ireland! :)

"As the trip continued to Mittelschefflenz, Horst Keller from Dorbath & Partners Architects promised us an insight into the inner life of a wall heating in an old farmhouse. Previously divided up into two parts, this house is currently under renovation and will, once completed, become the home of three people. It is being redeveloped by the owners themselves who are investing a huge amount of hard work, loving dedication and effort. We saw foil-protected solid wood ceiling beams, plaster fillings made of a mixture of clay and straw, low ceilings, as well as some changes in style resulting from work carried out by various owners over the years. Keller explained that even in a historical structure like this, it is possible to meet modern quality standards for insulation. He said that the way in which the Masterson family are carrying out the renovations is “exemplary”."

The heat is still on

The past two weeks have been very busy, in the lead up to a big plastering session. The final pieces of wall heating have been installed, holes are being closed up, dry walling being completed (or sometimes started), mesh being installed in ceilings, cabling relaid as I changed ideas and more. More importantly, a professional plaster has been in installing beading on corners around the window opes and all that. Let's make a quick photo tour.

My favourite room on the second floor got the panels installed  for the wall heating (a nice, easy job) and then the pipes fitted.

At the other side, same level, the bedroom got the same treatment.

And on the third floor, at least one of the two rooms up there is done, as I didn't have time yet to dry line the other room.

In the living room, we finally got the rest of the underflooring down, so it'll be safer to work there.

And as the clay plaster for the ceiling will be sprayed on, we've got some special protective sheets to cover the beams so we don't have to clean them all over again once the plastering is done. Comes with built-in adhesive strips on one side, and then we can but to size to tape up the other side. Though we'll probably need to staple them too, as tape doesn't stick so well on dusty oak beams.

The first floor is ready for plastering, which I simply cannot wait for, as it will make a huge difference to the house. We should be ready to start that in two weeks, as there's sill a lot of preparation work to do. But even having all the beading in place seems to make a difference.

Little covers are installed on most of the sockets now, so they can be plastered over and rediscovered.

The bare timbers in the landings upstairs are being closed off ready to receive wall heating (that's a job for tomorrow night).

And the missing wall between the bedroom and office on the first floor has finally been built after the heating system was hooked up. To add a little spice, I want to install this old window frame given to us by a neighbour. Not just so it looks nice, but also to get a bit more light into the small, north-facing office.

The heat, as I said, is still on, as there is still much to do before plastering can begin in earnest. But it's looking good!

The heat is on.

We've been keeping the pace up the past couple of weeks, trying to keep to our goal of getting the wall plastering started as soon as possible. This of course means any remaining wall heating has to be installed which in turn means all the underconstruction has to be completed before the heating panels can be stuck on. This is now complete in my favourite room on the second floor, as well as starting to close the hole in he ceiling up to the next level.

It actually makes the room feel larger and a little brighter, as the old plaster and wood behind these panels wasn't the most reflective.

Having said that, I thought I'd include myself in a photo for a change, to give some sort of scale. And I'm not a tall man! Nevertheless, despite the low ceiling, it's roomy enough, and definitely cosy.

The past few days have been spent sorting the kitchen out, as it has been neglected for quite a while. The mesh has been nailed to the ceiling to carry new clay plaster.

The gaping hole where the old chimney went has a new beam bolted to the others and laths installed ready to receive plasterboard.

Best of all, we finally closed off the wall behind which the spaghetti of cables and timber frames is hidden. Suddenly the kitchen feels cleaner and bigger.

And staying in the kitchen, the west wall was being prepped for fresh plaster by chopping off any loose stuff and keying the surface. While doing this, the big lumps were coming easily off the remaining chimney, revealing red brick. I hasn't thought his might be red brick, but it makes sense for a chimney.

Thinking this would make a nice feature, i removed all the plaster and then cleaned each brick with a nylon brush attachment on a drill, with quite nice results. All that's left to do is to scratch out some of the old mortar and repoint. I've plenty of experience of that!

Meanwhile, down in the cellar, Sace popped by yesterday and hooked up the wall heating in the bedroom and office (these designations are subject to change!), so now three rooms are running on the heating system Not that we need heating right now!

 We've now a list of tasks that we need to complete in two weeks, if we want to stay on target and start plastering. Apparently our kitchen is coming in August! I doubt it...