Plaster thick, Some will stick

(Not even half done, but isn't it pretty? The white spaces will be left as is -- they're behind cabinets, so we didn't plaster those spaces.)

This weekend we put American Clay on the walls. Thirty-four "woman"-hours of work, not counting the primer, which we finished Friday night.  That's the first coat done -- only three more steps to go.

It is actually not hard to do, and (if you have good tunes to listen to, or in my case, podcasts from The Popcorn Dialogues, Kermode and Mayo movie reviews, and WNYC's RadioLab) not all that tedious.  The plaster is forgiving of mistakes, and the look is intended to be organic.

Mixing it took an hour and a half, alone. You start by pouring half a 50 pound bag of flour-like plaster into a couple gallons of water. Separately, you mix the color -- a one-pound bag of colored powder -- into water, and then pour that into the clay.  Then you work another 25 pounds of plaster dust into the mix, using a drill with a mixing head on it, slowly so as not to create lumps, until it "forms the consistency of pudding". I know how to mix a wedding cake now -- as long as it's pistachio.

Then, slap the pudding-goop on the wall and spread it around.  As I said, it was tedious more than difficult, and simply took forever.  We had to change our plans on the fly as to what is to be plastered -- we had intended the ceiling of the long entrance way to be clay as well, but there simply wasn't enough (and the stuff is expensive enough that we didn't want to buy a third bag, to use about an eighth of it for that one space.

That was the first coat.  The second coat is more of the same, except we hope that this time we'll be more experienced (i.e., faster).  Third coat is actually just a damp sponge and pressing, which we really really hope is faster -- just a matter of climbing up and down the ladders. And lastly, the sealant -- sprayed on lightly with a mister bottle, and left to cure for three days.  We are hoping to have the contractors back in a week from today to start installing the cabinetry, so we have to get the walls completely done by Friday night.  It will be a busy week.