Fireplace and Plaster

Having had to rearrange a visit to Kent to see David and Ann, I had an unexpected weekend at home. Over the two days, I've alternated between working on the chimney breast in the master bedroom, and the stone wall in the sewing room (the old house bathroom).

The chimney breast in the master room, when we hacked the plaster off it, we discovered had been repaired with several sections of cement block (also known as breezeblocks). This was a bit disappointing, as I didn't want to re-repair in stone (partly because messing around with a necessary and functional chimney seemed unwise), but we had hoped to have an exposed stone feature in the room.

Fortunately, the repairs were not particularly extensive—unlike in the front guest room, where apart from the immediate fire surround (sides and lintel), the rest of the chimney had been rebuilt in red brick. This allowed a partial exposure of the stone. First was to remove as much of the remaining plaster from the stones, and chisel out some of the pointing. The pointing was mostly in good nick, but in order to keep it looking consistent, and as some would need replacing, I needed to cut back all of it somewhat. I used a steel brush on the drill, which worked really well at cleaning the stone. To keep dust down, I hung a polythene/cotton dust sheet to make a compartment, which did the job fairly well.

Once the brushing was complete, I sponged the stones down to get rid of the residue. There's a few places I need to do a little more work, but it's pretty good. I then used browning plaster to cover the cement block repairs, and enough of the other stones to make a transition from the plastered adjacent wall to the exposed stone. I've mostly done the finishing plaster, too, but ran out of a batch with a square foot to go—that'll have to wait until next time I've got a bucket made up.

I'm pleased with how it looks. I still need to clean the lintel/sides, and do a bit more cleaning, particularly on the left hand side where it goes towards the bathroom door.

The cleaned-up and replastered master bedroom fireplace (© Ian 2016)

The other job was plastering the stone wall in the sewing room, which required several coats of browning plaster, followed by finishing plaster. I don't expect it would win prizes, but it's fine.

I still need to do the chimney breast in the sewing room, in the same way: pull out some nails, steel brush it down, and then sponge it. They'll both then need re-pointing, with lime mortar, which is a job for later: but the sewing room one won't need any plastering, as it's wholly stone.