You can see where the po blew in insulation and covered the holes with duct tape. I plan to patch and paint. The chimney is for an abandoned laundry boiler on the 1st floor. It's gone now, but I have the blueprints or I never would have been able to guess what it was for. The roof must have leaked terribly around the chimney, and presumably to address this, a po had it taken down to below the roofline and the roof patched. I think flashing would have been easier, but the chimney top is gone now. I _could_ restore the chimney and put a fireplace in this room, but it seems kind of a small, out-of -the-way spot to have a fireplace. On the second floor, the chimney passes through what will be the master bath lavatory room (currently a closet). On the first floor, it passes through the laundry area, which will become a conservatory. I can see a fireplace in the conservatory, but since the house already has fireplaces in the DR and LR, I'd just as soon have the master bathroom (there is none currently). But, if someone can make a compelling case to keep and restore the chimney and add fireplaces, I might well do it.

What on earth is the large hole in the plaster for? If you look carefully, you'll see a line continuing off to the left from the bottom of the hole. They cut through all the laths along that line. I'm trying to patch it for now but it's not going to be a great patch. I'm using plaster anchor washers and screws to attach laths to the rafters and anything else solid I can find. I do love this mid-century green, although it seems to have a layer of soot on it.

More of the chimney. lots of efflorescence and patching. Notice how it widens as it goes up, to give a more prominent appearance above the roofline. When it extended beyond the roofline, that is. If I do remove the rest of it, it won't be during the winter, as I wouldn't be surprised if the roof patch was done improperly, and rests on the chimney. That's the thing about old houses; nothing surprises you after a while. We have a partially collapsed masonry wall in our bulkead; po tried to shore it up by stuffing socks and underwear in between the fieldstones.

Here you can see how the floorboards butt into the baseboards. Guess they installed the baseboards first. I wonder why.

Here is another shot of the floor. Old pine boards of varying width, nailed down. I love the way you can feel the grain on these; it's as if they're sunken with age. I love them. A good cleaning and maybe tung oil is all I want to do.

The cracked vent pipe. My neighbor said it was due to the house settling. 3/4" in 120 years is not too bad, right? (shaky laugh). He also said to just get a fiberglass repair kit and wrap the crack. As a sailboat owner, I can roll with that.

The acorn-tipped hooks. Love 'em--keep! Gotta get a push-button light switch to keep them company though.

Here is where they tore out the floor. Watch your step! You can see the 12" x 3/4" rough pine subfloor. Looks like they cut out a joist. That is going to be challenging to address. Why did they stuff insulation in the open floor space?

I don't plan on touching any of the woodwork in the room except to give it a good cleaning. Mostly I just plan to patch the walls, and try to make the torn up corner safe.

Comments, suggestions, and theories welcomed.

From your description of where you were placing the Master b'room lavatory and the laundry room, it appears the pipe would be near the old chimney. It's not vented into the capped-off chimney is it?

Just to elaborate a bit, if you look at the first picture in this post, pretend you're standing in the doorway. The chimney, as you can see, is in front of you and slightly to the left. You can't see the vent pipe in the picture, but it's directly off to the right in the right corner.

Taking it down was surprisingly easy, but MESSY. The only tools I used were a hammer, a large old screwdriver, and a chisel. I was very glad I protected the floor before I started.

The hardest part was carrying all the bricks down from the third floor and out to the backyard. Grunt work.

Here is a picture of the patched walls where the chimney came out:

I know it's a cliche, but the room feels much bigger and lighter now.

This was my first drywall patching project and I was surprised at how easy it was to cut and shape drywall. I just used my quilting grid (to me, sewing and home improvement go hand in hand) and a carpet knife. Shimming was the hard part, but after a while I just kept doing trial fits until I got it right. Also I used finish nails instead of drywall screws to attach the shims so they wouldn't split.

Here is my "what happened" hole, before and after:

It turned out better than I expected.

So now I am off to scrape out the numerous cracks in the original plaster to prepare for patching, and then I'm going to vacuum and clean like crazy before I start with the joint compound. It will be nice when I get to the skimming step; right now I have to shower every time I leave the room. I've never bathed so many times in a week in my life.

Blackcats, I don't think any house you live in could lack character for very long.

I'm curious that you recommend starting with durabond and switching to easysand for the final steps. Just guessing, but is the rationale for this to get the benefits of the strength of the durabond, combined with the ease of sanding easysand on the outer layers, which get sanded the most anyway? Also i seem to remember an old thread someone posted on how one common type of joint compound does not get along well with old plaster and lath, and to avoid it. I think it might have been easysand. But it would make sense to use it on the outer layers for leveling and smoothing; at that point it wouldn't be touching plaster anyway. Now I gotta go dig that up to satisfy my curiousity.

I've got almost an entire gallon of zinnser cover stain oil based primer in the basement, so that should work. This project has been nearly all labor and hardly any material costs. Oof, the labor though! Free, but finding the time has not been easy.

Worthy, you are right, my patch pieces could have been bigger. My cousin blew out his back working with 4 x 8 sheets of drywall, and since then, I'll only work with the little pieces. I do like to think of myself as an amazon woman (once I had to carry two of my kids down a mountain in AZ bc they had a meltdown, and by golly I was not gonna be late for dinner at mil's), but I have a healthy respect for two things: full sheets of drywall, and any use of ladders beyond 12'. Actually 4, table saws and my mil. But she doesn't figure into my house projects very much.

I scaped everywhere with a trowel prior to washing, so I've gotten all the obviously loose stuff off. I don't want to follow a full calcimine protocol at this point because even where a lot of color came off, as I continued to scrub with new cloths, I got to a point where hardly any more came off. If it was calcimine, I'd think it would just continue to wash off. And in no places did I get down to bare plaster just through washing.

Still, I'd like to play it safe. I've got the zinsser cover stain oil primer, but there's also a Ben moore product for covering calcimine: Moorcraft super spec alkyd calcimine recoater 306. Only thing is, it's a finish coat paint, not a primer, and I really want to prime before I paint.

I'm on the fence. Any suggestions out there?

Thanks!

I'm sort of dreading having to sand down and poly the floors, but I told myself I would do it this Spring.

Your comment made me curious --- what does tung oil do to the floors? Would it work in med/high traffic areas?

Here's a pic:

http://imgur.com/oRe5i.jpg
http://imgur.com/LGXW9.jpg

Thanks.

Thanks,
Alex

So I guess some question is still -- how well does Tung oil treated flooring hold up in medium/high traffic areas? This is going to be the TV/lounge area, but there will be rugs covering a lot of the flooring.

Thanks.

Our little cottage in Alabama was built in 1950, not old old like some of the houses of other members. But it 60 years old now, and the plaster was reinforced with wire mesh at the corners and where surfaces meet. No lathing, but some kind of wallboard with big holes in it to give the plaster cement a place to grip. And the exterior is a cement stucco with wire embedded in it too. Hubby says this house is not going down in a hurricane like our other one did. Thanks for the information

You make sure the wallboard is below the face of the plaster and cover the entire patch with compound to match the old plaster height.

Nothing (including actual lime-plaster) is directly 'compatible' with old plaster except maybe pre-mixed mud (and that should not be used).

The old stuff is dry, and will soak up water from any new material. Pre-mixed mud hardens by drying out, so it is unaffected.

Setting type compound, and actual lime-plaster harden by chemical reaction. If they are allowed to dry out to fast they will not harden correctly, but remain weak and subject to powdering.

Plaster bonding compounds are mostly just glue, like plain old white elmers (and that can be substituted if diluted with some water for painting on a thin coat).

It slows the movement of water enough to allow the new material to set up before drying out.

You can apply patching compounds directly to old wood lath or base coats of plaster, but dampen them or coat with bonding compound.

I just use a small spray bottle for smaller jobs, and leave the garden sprayer for very large repairs.

If you moisten the old work you do not need to worry about bonding compound.

The water should not be dripping off the old stuff, just dampen it lightly.

Update on the room: I got the plaster bonding agent. I ended up getting Silpro Weld-o-bond because it was available locally, and it is labeled for bonding old plaster to gypsum materials. If you are in the greater Boston area this may be easier to find than Link or Plasterweld. I tried spraying it but I wimped out on the mess. Plus it was beading and dripping off the plaster, not soaking in. I ended up brushing it into the cracks with a small (1 1/4") Purdy brush. I had to make multiple passes as the first pass would apply, second would break surface tension, and subsequent ones would provide more liquid to absorb. I also thinned it nearly 50/50 with water per label instructions.

It is fantastic! No more crispy crumblies! I can run my finger down a crack, and it does not rain sand down on me. I wish I'd known about this before; it is great stuff. At $12/gallon, it's a cheap lifetime supply.

Today I am moving some cabinets around in my kitchen so that the refrigerator can open fully (it has been flush to a side wall since we moved in 2 years ago). Wish I'd thought of this before. Of course, the cabinets are 50 years old and nailed in 50 different ways, so it's a bear to get them out. I'll be using screws to put them back :-). Hopefully I will finish that today and then it's back to the trunk room.

Just wondering, anyone know why not?

Also, here is a link to someone (actually, the mayor of Dayton, OH) who is using traditional lime plaster on his walls:

Funny note - I clicked your link to your octagon room in the thread about closets and thought - I've seen this house before (which I love by the way)! And then realized that was the same house/person as this trunk room thread. It's fun to link 'people' to houses =D

chimney before:

during:

and after:

vent pipe wall before:

vent pipe wall during:

pipe wall after:

window wall before:

window wall after:

and my favorite, I got the classic accents push button switch:

I buffed the brass with a blue (or was it green) scotch pad to give the switch plate a burnished look.

Incidentally I figured out the extensive cuts and holes near the knee walls were made when the p.o. was thinking about adding hvac ducts and registers to the room, but then abandoned that idea.