Plastering Underway

The plastering is now well underway in the basement room. We didn't quite manage to finish boarding out the ceiling, so the plasterer finished it for us. Somehow he managed to do this using 8' x 4' boards all by himself. I did offer to assist, but I think he likes to work by himself, so declined. He has a pair of adjustable props to help with holding the board in place while the screws are put in, which, as you will see later in this post, I have made use of. However, they are slightly awkward to adjust and I still don't see how you could get them in position, and adjusted, while at the same time holding a whole sheet of plasterboard up to the joists ! All he would say when asked was "oh, I just balance it on my head" !

So with the ceiling boarded out he was then able to get on with the sand & cement render coat to the walls. Note in the first picture, the unboarded section of the ceiling to allow for the, as yet unspecified, spiral staircase. More of that in a future posting.

With the plastering now underway in the basement room, it was possible to turn attention to the beam casing in the room above. We followed the same technique as before, with a combination of wooden battens and metal angle brackets to attach it. First though, we had a few cables to tidy :

This time the beam casing was more reluctant to manoeuvre into place. I think we must have got the batten alignment slightly askew as it was very difficult to get the casing up over them. If it fitted at one end it was out at the other, or in the middle. Several times we used a plane to shave bits off the battens, and one set was repositioned at least once.

Here are the plasterer's props that I mentioned earlier, which certainly made things a little easier :
I have to confess that they were even better than my trusty old scissors jack !