Author: Dominic Fitzgerald

The cottage on first impression did not look too bad and the owner wanted a lick of paint to sell it. On observation i noticed lots of bubbles in the masonry paint that needed to be removed. Once started the problems with the walls became clear. Some previous builders had used cement render to point the cottage and then covered it in a few coats of Synthetic masonry paint. A big mistake for a property of this age. The opposite happened and rising moisture had nowhere else apart from into the stone and inside the cottage which was damp.

The cement needed to come out along with all the paint on the lower layer to let the walls breathe. NHL 3.5 lime pointing with various local sharp sands were used.

The cement render was hard to remove without damaging the Mere stone. Various methods were used.

The rotting Pine lintel and the top of the frame needed to be carved out to non rotting wood and replaced with some harder Oak.

A new footing was used with a different lime mix with added Pozzolan agril for hardware in a continual wet space.

The paint we used was a micture of minera with part synthetic to bond to the synthetic upper coat and was called Silicate Pittura from Mike Wye.

This Is the restoration of a larder on a grade 2 listed building. The plaster was coming of the stone work all over the place. We took of all loose plaster much more than the start pics shoe. We re pointed the wall and re plastered with Lime lite plaster. The walls were them painted with Auros Hi grade lime paint.

 

The bedroom was in quite a state with plaster falling off some of the walls and nails sticking out of a previously carpeted Pine floorboards. Auro 321 Nimbus was used on the walls as well as a grey Auro 260 on the Skirting. Auro 2 in 1 oil oil wax was used on the floor. Repairs on the old style wooden Plaster frame were done and two cotes of lime plaster put on.

After

I used a industrial belt sander and a skirting sander using different grades of paper to get a good finish.

We Were very happy with the final result of the floor which was completed a day early in just two days work.

The two in one oil wax is an amazing product with just one application it was finished without needing to polish.

 

Three rooms a stairwell, kitchen and woodwork with some wallpapering.

We used Auro 321 nimbus for the walls. and Auro 260 for the woodwork.

Fair amount of prep work not seen in pictures.

 

We painted the rendered walls with Auro high grade lime. I mixed two colours using two of the lime pigment additives and my own ochre, blue and rose pigments. The lime paint is great as it adheres well is porous letting the wall dry, will not bubble up after a few years like most masonry paints and will no go mouldy because of the high PH.

We removed about five layers of paint from the exterior of a house on waltcot st with heat guns, sharp scrapers and chisels. Re pointing was done
Auro high grade lime paint was used as this lets the stone breathe and is a similar PH.

The wagons were a great project because it allowed me to play more with different pigments.

They are rented out for the summer months and after the last paint job needed a refurbish. On the exterior under carriage the previous painter just pasted paint on top of some beautiful coloured paintwork without cleaning,  using a undercoat or sanding. This meant scraping back most of the paint which was time consuming and fiddly.

We used contrasting warm colours. On the interiors and exteriors we used the Auro 253 white undercoat and Auro 250 cream gloss. The Auro colours were adapted. In the green wagon some yellow ocher was added to soften the very light cream. In the red wagon interior some yellow/orange pigments were added to both paints to give warm glow. All the other bright colours  were ratios of pigment mixed with the paint saving money on buying different pots of paint and paint that we were using. The yellow exterior undercarriage was matched to the previous paint saving time on no more than two coats. We added some colour effects giving a vibrant appearance.