The Wall Continued.

This is the bathroom wall continued. The other pictures showed it with the silver finish that we then primed with mahogany coloured paint. This is the finished top coat. It is hard to photograph it perfectly. It has a mat finish that is covered with a glue (for want of better word.) I suppose, it is a varnish really, but it soaks right in and dries almost like you put nothing on top of the rust. It makes the finish water proof and smooth, not rusty and flakey. The rust is mulicolours with depth and patterns from grey to mat black to yellow, orange,to dark red.

One more cob picture

This is the back of the cobbed wall viewed from the top of the staircase. The light through the stainglass shines on the floor and cob in colours.

Cob finished close-ups

This is the cobbed wall mostly done. I could not get a very good full shot of it, because of the angle of the wall. I tried to show some close ups too, but none of this does justice to how wonderful this wall looks-- especially at night with lights shining through one side of it. I still have to do two layers of plaster on it. This will smooth it up, give it a colour and cover up the wood studs between each section.

Cob, endless cob.

Continued work on the top half of the cob wall. In some ways this is quite a bit slower than the bottom half. It took a lot more cob mixes for the bottom half, but there is much more shaping involved in the top half. Sometimes I did not use a whole mix a day on the top wall.

I also had to transfer the cob longer distances for the top half. The bottom half I just dragged the whole tarp full of cob mix from the porch where I mixed it, to the entryway. If the cat did not escape while I struggled over the thresh hold, this was fast. Most of the top wall work was done from the landing. I had to make balls of the cob and stack it onto the wall and then run around to work, or load the cob into five gallon buckets and heave them up the stairs. This took much longer.

Cob, beautiful cob

Just before Thanksgiving, I finished the bottom half of the cobbed wall. This is a great wall that separates the staircase from the entryway and is full of all sorts of sculptural potential! The bottom half (as you can see in two of the pictures) is very plain. I put in some of those glass bricks to bring light into the basement. Jan and I got those at the salvage place in Seattle. She made cool bookends with hers. I also left a scooped out arch shape for the cat. He likes to sit on the ledge inside the staircase and then leap through to the entryway. He very obligingly poses in it for pictures, but I don't have one here. I left the majority of the wall plain, because the coat hooks are going there and the coats will cover almost half the wall anyway.

The pile of driftwood is various pieces that I collected with knot holes. I found the first one at Brenda's place. I thought this is so cool. I could make holes in the cob with these framing them or add glass... In the end I did a bit of both. I love coloured glass, so I bought some different glasses from places like World Market and found some in junk shops. I got a beautiful cranberry glass to use and some lovely amber ones with crackle finishes.

I have two lovely stainglass windows that my friend, Debs', daughter, made in art school for us when we lived in flat one of Maderia house. We swapped them out for plain glass again and moved them with us. They just make the cob wall.

The Wall

This is the wall for the downstairs loo. David has humoured me on this one. I love rusty barn roofs. I wanted to salvage some, but it comes all twisted up and is incredibly expensive. I found this great paint that you put on in layers and it has actual metal, (iron or copper or other) that you apply acid too and rust than seal. I did the upstairs bathtub with it. Someone suggested I do that to new metal work and get my rusty barn roof cheaper and easier. David worries it is too hippyish, but agreed to put up some sheets of galvanised metal roofing on the walls. This is what it looks like so far with first metal, then bottom coat of paint. I put the acid on it a few days ago, but we are away now and I haven't sealed it or taken further pictures. I will get those up later.

Downstairs Loo closer to finished

We spent another weekend doing the sink. This looks better in the pictures than in the flesh. It badly needs re enameling. We will eventually get that done. It is a nice little sink and the taps are old and brass and actually came with it. Two washers later, they work great!

I made a curtain out of scraps -- various Linen fabrics from Bells in Cranbrook. Jan helped on a weekend they were up just before Christmas. We had two sewing machines out. Jan was quilting like a mad thing all that weekend, but she stopped and helped get the cuts straight with her quilt cutter knife and big cutting board. The last fabric had a great fringey selvage that I just left on the bottom unhemmed. I reused in the window, an old curtain I'd made for the Oasthouse, because I love the fabric. I just added tabs from ribbon and we got an Amish curtain rod.

The Amish curtain rod is okay, but I have to say, I really miss Andy, the blacksmith!!! I tried to find someone to do brackets for the fireplace and they wanted $850 for two brackets! (I am reusing some salvage ones instead!) I shudder to think what a curtain rod would cost.