Clay Play

Strap yourself in for a long post. When we don't post often, it means we're getting a lot done! At least that's what we tell ourselves. Sorry you haven't heard from us in a little while.

We finished the ceiling a couple of weeks ago, Solatubes and all. The Solatube dampers are in, and so we can let less light in, should we so choose.

As of right now, our walls are very close to being finished. We've nearly completed the application process of the clay, which has been fairly easy to work with, overall. We're liking the way it looks, and we think we'll be able to do a better job next time.

How it works is you put the sanded primer on, mix up the first coat (coarse grit, which is called Loma), trowel that on to the walls, let it dry, and then mix up and put on the second coat (which you can either do another Loma coat or use the fine grit, Porcelina). We used the Porcelina because we wanted a smooth finish. Then you do what's called burnishing, where you're basically compressing the clay to harden it, but also to smooth it out further and get the finer particles to the top.

We've put on our Loma coat and the Porcelina coat, and we've burnished two of the walls. It has taken a LOT longer than we thought it would, but working every night after work and on the weekends, we're nearly finished. What hasn't taken a lot longer than we thought it would, though?

Here's how our process went.

We put the Loma into the bucket, and using a drill we got off of craigslist for the express purpose of mixing stuff, added the water and tried to mix it.

Unfortunately, we couldn't get the water to distribute through the Loma powder well enough to actually USE the mixer. So, we started it off the old fashioned way:

Hand mixing worked out surprisingly well. Good thing I keep my fingernails super-short, or I would have been picking Loma out for weeks. Anyway, once we got all the Loma more or less wet, we were able to use the drill mixer without it smoking.

Then it was time to add the color. We chose Tucson Gold (yellow), and so we mixed up the pigment paste and added to the Loma. I was worried that the pigments wouldn't come out of our clothes, but they did. The clay has come out of our clothes each time (it's just dirt), and the pigment hasn't left any stains.

The thing about the pigment is that each batch is different, so you have to make a big enough batch so that you have some left over, because it's almost certain that you won't have the same color next time. (Gotta account for natural variation in color.) The Loma mixed up very nicely, in the end, about the consistency of pudding.

Then it was time to apply the Loma. All said and done, it took between eight and 10 hours to do the Loma coat.

And here's how the room looked with the Loma coat.

Then we mixed up the Porcelina. This time we followed the directions to the letter to try and avoid the problems we had with the Loma, but the hand mixing actually worked better. Oh well. In order to apply the Porcelina, we wetted down the layer of Loma on the walls with a spray bottle, and then applied the Porcelina right on top. The Porcelina was much smoother than the Loma, and was the same earthy yellow color (which incidentally matches our pendant lights perfectly).

And now we're burnishing!

We're very, very happy with the color and the way the room looks, and we're really excited to get the burnishing done, which will happen this week, and then begin the bookshelf and trim, which we'll do after moving my brother in next weekend.

Our permit runs out next month (gasp, gasp), and so we need to really get cracking. We also have to put on and paint siding, so we mocked up a couple of different widths. We ended up going with the width on the right (five inch exposure) because it's not a special order item. Now we just have to make our order and we'll install that soon. Whew!

Hopefully things will go more quickly once my brother moves in and we have an extra hand. We're feeling the clock ticking away the minutes, but at least we have our plan of action.