Melbourne
That's a big job - got any photos showing the condition of the inside?
I love the old plaster look but it is a pain - just spent the last couple of months ripping out the plaster from a 2 story 1880's terrace house
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Quoted from DCP:Gradually removing 7-1/2 foot drop ceilings and going back to 10 feet.
Is 10 feet ceiling the typical Victorian ceiling height in the US? Here is Australia they're 12 or 14 feet - I wondering if that is because of our hot summers, they raised the ceiling height??
Keep posting pics - love to see more of the place (this is becoming my favourite thread 
.... sorry pinnies 
)
Quoted from Bud:I hear you on the old building restorations. Been working on mine for almost 10 years and still not done. I’d to replace the slate roof, went with copper.
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Wow!! Was that expensive?? Are copper roofs common on historic houses?
Quoted from Blitzburgh99:Is this stuff considered lime plaster?
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Out of interest, do you guys call that a lath & plaster wall? Laths are the wooden slats. Houses in Australia used lath & plaster until around 1920, after which you started to see plaster board made with horse hair being used - this stuff is heavy as compared to the dry board we have today.
Quoted from rotordave:Awesome project.
I see these buildings when we drive around the States, and I’ve often commented in my travel threads about what awesome projects they are.
For us poor schlubs down under (where a building like that costs in the millions of dollars) do you mind letting us know how cheap it was?
I’ve seen some in my travels that were ludicrously cheap ... well, compared to what we pay down here.
I’m currently restoring a 1919 3 story timber house near the centre of Auckland. I started late January and happy to say that the main 2 levels are almost done. Just painting the inside now. It’s been my full time job all year. Can’t fathom how you could do this if you’re working full time as well. It’d take 20 years.
rd
Before: turned into 3 flats, unpainted for 60 years, original 100 year old roof broken and leaking, house on an angle. Lol.
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Now: house not on an angle, repainted outside, turned back into one 350sqm (3800sqft) house, removed chimneys, installed 2 giant AC units, new roof, new skirting, architraves, moldings, windows ... etc etc
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Wow Dave you've been a busy man!! Looks awesome 
Quoted from DCP:Yes, we call it plaster and lath, too...and plasterboard starts showing up in the 1920s or so in the States, also.
The part I'm repairing now is plaster directly on top of brick. I never really knew you could do that! But my test patch seems to be sticking really well to the brick, so it is doable with my modern version of lime plaster.
Yep all our period houses with double brick walls had the plaster applied directly to them. I don't know the specific details but it looked like they applied different compound layers in plastering the wall - the thicker layer applied to the bricks had more coarse sand (similar to mortar but different) while the final coats were much thinner and very fine material (similar to the modern day plaster).
Quoted from rotordave:Me neither!
So get this ... above where the kiddie pool was, the previous owner (owned from 1980-2020 and did bugger all to the place) had gone to great lengths installing scrap timber and black polythene and a bucket up in the ceiling to stop the leak.
The bucket was a typical 50c plastic bucket, and he had drilled a hole in the side near the top, installed a metal thread with nuts holding it in, and popped a washing machine waste pipe on the end of it.
The waste pipe drained straight into the eaves. Causing more damage.
All that effort - he could have replaced the cracked tile in 20 minutes. Or worst case, epoxy the old tile up. Would have worked better than what he did.
Just crazy shit.
I’m currently outside rebuilding the large elevated double garage on the site. The section is very sloped - the place is built on the side of Mt Eden, a dormant volcano (Auckland is built on top of like 50 dormant volcanos)
The roof was shot ... so bad in one place, the guy had taken off the garage door (!) and placed it on top of the roof to stop the leaks! (!!)
I started last Monday - it was going to be a tidy up and a reroof ... but the structure was so bad it just started falling down. So I ripped it all down and built a new one.
Had to drop a huge tree branch that sorta went through the wall of the shed. Should have seen my stunts with the 4 metre long pole saw.
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That's hilarious the extraordinary lengths the previous owner has gone to in applying half-arsed bandaids ... just fix the bloody problem properly!!!
Quoted from DCP:manny65 That's exactly the way they do it..a thick basecoat, like 3/4", and a thinner coat on top. They use finer sand and maybe a little less of it for the top coat, but it's all the same stuff. What I like about it is you have all day to dink around with the plaster and smooth it and make it flat. It sets up really slowly compared to anything else I've ever gooped on to walls.
They do a whole lot more plastering in the UK, and there are a ton of great websites with information about lime plaster and other old finishing methods. This site is very informative - https://www.limeworks.us/. They get into the differences between so called "hydraulic" and non-hydraulic limes. The hydraulic limes have some cement in them, and are sort of a hybrid between the old lime-and-sand mix and more modern ones. There is really an unbelievable amount of information to be discovered on the topic of interior plaster and exterior stucco and other mixes.
This is both the fun part, and the problem with doing restorations. There are a million rabbit holes you have to look in for information, and that is distracting and takes a lot of time.
I've always loved being a Jack of All Trades, Master of None!
"...Specialization is for insects..." Sci-fi author Stanislaw Lem
Thanks DCP this is useful information.
Here's a couple of pics from the reno we're doing at the moment - in the first shot we were taking down the horse hair plaster board, revealing laths but all the original lime plaster had been removed when they replaced it with the horse hair board. The second pic that wall had dry board glued to the old lime plaster, unfortunately the lime plaster was coming off from the brick causing some issues, so when we took the dry board off a fair bit of the lime plaster came off with it and the rest of it simply gave way ending up on the floor.
Perry St 1 (resized).jpgPerry St 2 (resized).jpgQuoted from jgreene:Have you thought about leaving the brick exposed in some areas? The old brick has a really nice warm look to it and would make for a cool accent wall.
We did talk about that as I've seen it being done more recently in pub and cafes and looks great, though we decided to replaster to address/cover some other not so appealing features in the brick wall. The other thing I've seen is where they have lime plaster with patches of the bricks being visible, when done well it can give a nice affect.
Quoted from DCP:Last month's Halloween decorations. Cindi usually does more, but we're really busy working on the inside of the house...
Google Street View came by here several years ago, around 2015, shortly after half a block burned down across the street from us. You can see our Halloween decorations from that year, and the generally run-down condition of our town.
Here's a link that should take you straight to the street view in front of our house:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/hg3MhQvjSamwAjiz8
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Wow, those Halloween windows are cool - my son loves all things Halloween. Is is common for people to do up display windows like that?
Quoted from DCP:We've got PLENTY of raw brick at our warehouse! We originally bought a 1904 warehouse and were planning to live in the old offices. Once we were able to acquire the Bank, the warehouse became our storage unit and garage. Eventually it will have living space fixed up in it.
The office needs some plaster work - the whole warehouse is another giant black hole of a project...I'll post a few pics of the office when I dig through my photos. The interior pic below shows part of the 4th floor...there's a freight elevator, too...[quoted image][quoted image]
Wow that's cool - can put plenty of pins in there
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