Low Rent Renaissance

The front of gate is pretty much complete, except for some touching up with the Dremil tool. The back will will simply be primed  and painted.

Almost completed.  Knots, grain, splits, & nail holes.

Details of faux wood effort. 

Armature made from fence posts with gate corners, extruded polystyrine sheathing. metal lathe, and chicken wire. Using two parts vermiculite, one part builder's lime, one part Portland cement. Hanging plaque made with similar mixture over Styrofoam and chicken wire.

Working toward re-making the garden gate, which was an earlier attempt at faux wood using papercrete. The gate hangs on a fence post, so weight is a big consideration. That first effort was made of vermiculite, cellulose insulation, and cement. This new mix is two parts vermiculite, one part cement, and one quarter part builder’s lime. I started with one part water, but the vermiculite seemed to absorb a lot, and I had to add water was I worked. I made the armature for this small experiment out of  Styrofoam insulation and chicken wire. It will be a sort of hanging plaque, but I am more interested in seeing if the mix, sans paper, will work for the gate, and how heavy the finished product will be.  The vermiculite mix handled almost as well at that made with sand. It was coarser, but not as much as papercrete, and I could add more details than with papercrete. 

I accidentally deleted this post. I'd written that I'd run out of ready mix joint compound and substituted some powdered joint compound, and was pleased with how it handled. It also allowed me to thoroughly mix the joint compound in, which is difficult when using ready mix. When using ready mix joint compound, I add water to the sand, cement, and cellulose insulation, then add a glob of joint compound, squeezing and mixing as thoroughly as possible. Using the powder I can just add the joint compound to the dry mix and mix it in with a drill bit. I was surprised that the powder gave the mix a similar "clay-like" quality to that mixed with ready-mix. I'd made small batches that day, using a two pound coffee can, mixing one can sand, 1/2 can Portland Cement, 1/2 can cellulose insulation, and what amounted to two cups powdered joint compound, and mixed it with an electric drill with a mixer bit. This mix seems to set a bit, especially on a hot afternoon, in the b...

Continuing work on the garden wall using the sandy mix with powdered joint compound. This section is an effort at faux wood. I'm fairly pleased with it and would like to try "faux bois" textures with finer aggregates than sand and paper.  The photo below is the finished section of "faux brick showing behind broken stucco."

Continuing to rework the garden wall. This section is an attempt at faux brick.

More work on the garden wall. These days I'm mixing the ingredients dry in the cement mixer -- six parts sand, three parts paper, three parts Portland cement -- then putting a bit of the dry mix into a 5-gallon bucket and hand mixing in water and joint compound. It's a very workable mix, and cures to form a nice, hard shell.

Continuing to rework the garden wall using the same sandy mix --six parts sand, three parts cellulose insulation, three parts Portland cement, approximately two parts water, and a little joint compound.

A work in progress -- refinishing the papercrete garden wall. Papercrete, I think, for most of us, involves a  lot of experimentation and a good sized learning curve. There is information on line, but most of it is like the information in this blog – experimental recipes and processes that offer a starting place for our own endeavors. Those batches of papercrete I mixed two or three years ago for the garden wall were, like the first layers daubed onto the gazebo structure, too soft for exterior work– too much paper, not enough sand. The strongest, most workable papercrete has been the heaviest – lotsa sand, some paper, some cement, some ready-mix joint compound to help it stick. The same learning curve applies to the lime plaster applied to the garden wall a couple of years ago. Though the surface of the inside wall was still looking fair, the outside surface was brittle and full of cracks. Possible causes are plentiful. Like my practically nonexistent curing process. Or m...

Here is the completed entrance section of the papercrete wall, with arch, gate, and a concrete slab mosaic. The gate is made on a chain-link type gate frame covered with hardware cloth and plastered with papercrete. I mixed it with vermiculite. It's still fairly heavy, and the back is "unfinished," so that you can see the hardware cloth, etc. It's like a stage prop. The wall, of course, is made of papercrete in slip forms over recycled metal fence posts (as discussed in a previous post), then plastered over with more papercrete. The arch was one of those very light metal arbors purchased some years ago at a Dollar General Store and covered in hardware cloth. I layered it once in a papercrete-vermiculite mixture, then set it in place and simply plastered it with many layers of papercrete.

What I'm about to say would have probably been obvious in a couple minutes anyway, but I'll go ahead and say it. I know little about building. The angels generally protect me, though they are not beyond letting me spend some extra money. The 8x16 ft. shed I constructed about twenty years ago probably has more wood in it than my house does. If there is ever a tornado, that shed will be the place to go. On the other hand, it's still standing despite it's many structural insufficiencies. Admittedly, I had to replace the roof. Anyway, one day, I know, my luck will probably run out. Meanwhile, I thought I'd try building a wall with papercrete. My footing was some old cement blocks that were laying around. My plan was to drive some old metal fence posts, which were also laying around, through every other hole. The post would support the wall, which I imagined would be light and perhaps a little more flexible than conrete. After I filled in the holes in the blocks with co...

I've been building this wall (for months now?) using "slip forms" made from some plywood.