I skipped reporting back on last week’s work because it was all just scraping. Scraping off paint from wood; scraping off latex paint from the ceiling; scraping off failing plaster from a lime scratch coat. Only so much that I can write about that.

This weekend was still scraping, but added some more interesting work as I am nearing the finish line on scraping things. There’s a bit of the built-in left to scrape and 1 of the doors is still untouched, but for the most part I’m able to start working in some plastering prep.

My plan for plastering is to redo the ceiling and top part of the walls with TakCoat plaster along with mesh. Then I’ll put on a top coat of a fine plaster. Since the bottom part of the walls will have beadboard, I’m going to leave that rough plastered and just fill in holes where needed. But before any of that starts, there are some sections that are missing lath.

The first area is above the door where there used to be an HVAC duct. This duct was removed leaving about a 8” x 4” hole above the door. One thing that looks a little scary is that to install the HVAC duct, they cut out a cripple stud above the door. I don’t think cripple studs are load bearing, but I want to put some wood in there to provide at least a backing to nail replacement lath to.

I’ve saved bits of old wood so I’m able to use some original wood for the cripple stud and portions of the lath. I cut the replacement to fit gap and then add some metal braces to secure the wood.

I don’t think this approach is up to code because I think it’s supposed to be toe-nailed instead of screwed with braces, but things are too tight to toe-nail. I figure it has to be better than nothing at all which is what was there for the last 20 years.

After that wood is secured, nail some lath to the wood and then apply some plaster washers around the adjecant plaster because it’s all very loose. With the washers and the cripple stud in place, things do feel more solid and the walls don’t move when I press on them.

I go to the corner of the room which has a hole missing some lath. It looks like there used to be a plumbing connection heres so I wonder if the bathroom originally had a corner sink?

This repair isn’t too difficult because there’s already a stud I can easily attach to. For these I nail in the lath pieces and then I start misting them in preparation for plastering in the next few weeks.

With the lath repairs in place, back to scraping.