It was blood, sweet and tears, but there it stands, our first stone wall freshly repointed with lime mortar… And it does not look too bad for a first one !!
It still has to dry a few weeks for the color to match all over, but it does not stand in our way anymore.
We quickly learnt that you have to wear thick gloves and glasses while working with lime -my hands are still hurting- and that it gets everywhere, no matter how prepared you are !!!
We have been very lucky to learn all needed techniques with a professional mason, who also helped with our very first mix. We have been trying various sand colours and proportions in the mix until finding the ONE : 1/2 bucket yellow sand and 2 and 1/2 bucket white sand mixed with 1 bucket of lime. We started our experimentation with 1 yellow and 2 white, which gave a very nice colour at first but it darkened a lot and became more yellow after a few weeks. The key here is not to put all the water at once, just add little by little until you have a good consistency.
My throwing technique is still rubbish, I don’t know why but the lime mortar never wants to stick to the wall when I am throwing and curiously does when Graham is ! The wall had been prepped exactly the same way and sprayed with water (this helps the lime mortar to bond with the stones).
On the other hand, my brushing technique has become more advanced than his. I guess that we make the perfect team together !
Always put a thick coat (it’s always better to have more to take off than not enough!), but which allows you to see the stones which you will fully unveil later on.
We are now fully equipped for more walls to come : a mortar syringe which we ended up not using so much (the mix kept getting stuck), three different size trowels and I don’t count the amount of wire brushes we went through before we found the right ones : steel and brass wire brushes and a wet souple brush to get the finition perfect.
It was a lot of work, but we are feeling so proud and happy every time we look at it :)
