'Living Walls' plaster over an 'EcoNest' -- Working with Lime

Alright, this had been a big job, and hence, haven't written in a while. But finally finished and what a good one it has been! Especially for those of you interested in the super flat and super refined earth plaster style. Good to practice.

The structure is a heavy timberframe with a mixture of traditional european and japanese joinery and infilled Light Clay-Straw. It was designed by Paula LaPorte and the construction was led by her husband, Robert Laporte, of EcoNest. My mom was at the straw-clay workshop for this structure, where I got introduced to the project from early on. Little did I know, six months later, when the walls were thoroughly dry, I would be on a team of four to plaster the whole thing.

For this project, I joined the crew of Living Walls, a Portland-based earth plaster company, led by Joshua Klyber. We did a lime plaster system on the outside and earth plaster with aliz on the interior. And we had a lot of fun! This post will focus on the lime plaster portion and my next will cover the earth plaster work. Enjoy!

The site and our mortar mixer set-up.

The Light Straw-Clay walls to be covered.

Base coat of lime goes up

Greg works it!

Comin' around the corner!

base and finish coat shown clearly here

Joshua is so silly sometimes!

Pigmented lime wash

the fun part!

cleaning up the stonework with muriatic acid

classic Econest!

This finish is at minimum a seven-pass system. First, we prime or lathe all windows edges, corners and other expanses of wood. Then we apply the rough base coat of lime plaster which has a lot of gravel. Next we press the plaster with a wood trowel to compact the lime as it dries. Then we score the surface with a small rake or scarifier. Then we come around again with a finish coat, no gravel in it this time. We follow again with a hard-packing motion with a wood trowel. Then we brush all the loose sand from the surface. Finally we apply a lime wash to give the surface color, actually two coats. So in all, we have come around to every square inch of this exterior wall surface nine times. Labor intense, no joke!

Earth & Lime Plasters at Aprovecho

Ashley Aymond showing how to earth-plaster over lathe.

Lime plaster samples

Lydia Doleman mixes up the lime plaster

Maitreya Cob Bench

So before I get too far removed from Eugene, I thought it's be good to show some pics of the cob bench I worked on at Maitreya EcoVillage with Jack Stephens.

Local school children used to gather at this driveway waiting for the school bus, rain or shine. Now they've got a nice covered spot to wait and inspiring form to sit on. Maitreya also wanted a place that they could post announcements for events going on in the strawbale community building. There was an old fence at this location and the original fence posts were integrated into the structure. If ever needed, the original gate could still be reattached.

First we built an urbanite foundation (reclaimed roken chunks of concrete usually found in urban places...). Then we were able to start the cob process, we started mixing clay, sand and straw on tarps and then formed small lumps of the misture (called cobs) and began stacking them up in the form we felt best suit the space. As it grew we also learned how to cantilever and form arches with the material. The finish was done with an earthen plaster and then lime/casein paint with iron oxide pigments.

The earthen bench was completed over the course of 4 workshops and involved probably over 50 people. After attending the first workshop, I work-traded for the rest in exchange for building the roof structure. All the roof framing was made from reclaimed materials and constructed on sight, thanks to Rob Bolman.

I particularly like the back side of the bench wall with this adorable little face sculpted into it. It makes me giggle ever time I see it. :)