Stairs Ceiling

The very top floor stair ceiling was finished yesterday evening, along with the installation of an attic stairs. The original ceiling was lost many years ago and had been replaced with modern plasterboard. As outlined previously, this was removed recently and has been replaced with the new 50mm insulated board. As unauthentic as this modern ceiling is, it makes no sense to replace it with latte and lime plaster, due to cost, heat loss, finish and the potential of a fire hazard:

The ladder attached to the door allows easy access to the attic and folds away neatly:

Stairs Plaster Complete

The skim coat was applied to the stairs walls last week, completing the job. Despite being a lime plaster, it has the exact same finish as modern plaster, possibly smoother.

I also removed the ceiling in its entirety, so it can be redone early next week:

The plaster on the left is blended smoothly into the original plaster, despite its nasty appearance:

A few other spots were done on the first floor, building out from the brick:

Render In Daylight

A few better pictures of the external render in daylight:

External Render Complete

I'll get some day time pictures up of the completed render on the back of the house, as soon as it stops raining! I have to say the finish is spectacular in daylight, it even looks great with flash photography. The render is much whiter in person:

100mm Traditional Half-Round AluTec guttering was added before the final coat, to embed the brackets correctly:

Work continues on the inside, with the main job being the upper stair walls. Including the initial scratch coat, there are three coats of plaster here:

With the plaster taking shape, the huge span of this wall becomes apparent:

An additional light point was added to the wall in the left of this picture:

Roof Repairs & Lighting

I've known for some months that there was a small leak in the roof at the rear of the house, just above the stair window. It became even more obvious with the new plaster being applied to the internal wall above the window with some recent heavy rain.

Instead of repairing the entire roof, I decided to just tackle the lower four rows of slate and have them replaced. These were massive 300mmx600mm slates which weren't even attached to the roof.

Repairs began on Friday. Removing the felt below the tiles exposed the ceiling below:

The view from underneath:

The old removed tiles below. In very poor state to be of any further use, they would crumble in your hands:

The thickness of the outside west wall, exactly twenty inches wide:

EcoIsle hard at work, adding the new protective layers:

The layers down, secured with new batons:

The finished job below. Despite their looks, the tiles are actually exactly the same as the ones above, albeit 20 odd years younger. The spacing on the older tiles is the same also; the gaps have been filled with moss and grime over the years:

The dip in the roof is caused by a combination of a partially rotted wall plate and sagging rafters. The rafters will be braced from the underside. The main objective of this repair was to keep the water out:

The view of Dundalk from just gutter height:

I purchased some new light fitting for both the bedroom and bathroom, the bathroom ones are yet to be installed:

I may remove the hanging decoration and pull cord:

The upper stairs was also wired for wall lights before the plastering is finished. It's not clear yet if the plaster will fully clear the conduit yet, it may have to be chased deeper into the wall: