Some are probably wondering where we disappeared to this weekend although we usually go pretty silent over the weekends and that’s usually because we’re working so hard. This weekend we decided to throw ourselves back into some work and started the to convert the former chicken coop (and coal storage room before it was used for the birds) into a covered patio and lounge-type area. The steps required here are:

  • clean the room out
  • re-plaster about 1/3 of the main wall which had all the plaster eaten off of it thanks to the lovely bird feces which used to sit against it day after day
  • paint the walls and ceiling
  • paint the wooden trim outside
  • lay flooring
  • build benches, tables, stools, etc for seating area (as well as cushions eventually)
  • enjoy it!

Here’s what the room looked like when we got started. As you can see the wooden beams outside badly needed paint and the lines you see appeared when we took down the old bird fencing from the front of this. That was in August of last year and we’ve been trying to figure out just what to do in here since then…and of course working up the courage to actually take on the project πŸ™‚


As I mentioned, the first step was to clean out a bunch of junk that was laying against the back wall which needed to be plastered. We’d been storing the extra Del Conca tile we bought in here since it prevented it from getting wet and we just weren’t really sure what to do with it otherwise. We thought we might put it down on the floor here in this covered patio because it’s indoor/outdoor tile but after having it down in the kitchen for a while we think it would just be too slick when it’s wet. Not only would it be a hazard to us and our guests but also a huge one to the dog who sleeps up here all the time. But I’ll get into what we’re going to do on the floor later…back to the tile. Each tile is 60×60 cm (not quite 24 inches square) and seems to weigh a ton. The tiles are about a centimeter thick and thankfully there are only 4 in each package or we probably wouldn’t be able to lift the packages at all! We thankfully had a furniture dolly to help us move them from point A to B but picking them up twice was still required. We’re thankfully down to about half the amount we originally had but it will be fabulous when we can stop shuffling those boxes around! They’ll be resting in the horse stalls until we are ready to start that project…which we’ve decided will be after the mudroom buildout so we at least know what we’re doing with the drywall!


So here was the wall once we’d cleaned it a bit and knocked off the old bits of plaster that were loose. We had a few spaces between bricks and stones that needed to be cleaned out because everything was broken inside and moving around when we touched them. Once everything was brushed off I took the wet/dry vac and cleaned up all the dust. This was not just to prevent it from getting pushed into the wall while we were doing the plaster but also because there was so much dirt and leaves and other stuff up there that I really wanted to prevent the dog from tracking it around anymore. So I vacuumed the entire area which somehow amuses me…I’m sure if I saw someone outside vacuuming I would wonder about their sanity…but it’s so much better than sweeping and that thing will suck up just about anything so why not? I do nearly go deaf using it but it’s a small price to pay πŸ˜‰

While cleaning up the wall, we noticed that a few places have been patched using whatever they could find such as pieces of glass. A few of them actually fell out of the wall but there were stuck in there tightly still so they stayed in. There were actually two locations in this part of the wall with green glass like this which I found quite amusing.


With the wall clean and the vacuuming complete, it was time to mix up the plaster. We opted for the electric version of mixing everything or I think we wouldn’t have managed to get anything further done…


And then Stefan got started. We’ve never “slung mud” before but it takes more skill than one might thing to fling a glob of plaster onto a stone wall. One of the secrets that it took a little while to discover is that the wetness of the wall is crucial! Always keep a spray bottle handy to moisten the wall. If you throw the plaster at the wall and it doesn’t stick, many times it’s just because your wall isn’t damp enough. It should be just moist enough to glisten but not be dripping wet…in our case anyway. It would probably have something to do with the wetness of your plaster also. It should basically have the consistence of oatmeal.


Four hours later, the wall was finally finished. It isn’t quite perfect but for our first plaster job, I’d say it’s darn good. I helped Stefan for about an hour after I ran out of paint while painting the beams at the front of the coop and during that time we really made some good progress. At that stage he was more than half finished but was just starting to loose some momentum. The lower part of the wall was certainly the hardest and we just couldn’t throw the plaster at the right angle to get it to stick properly. But we managed to get some on there anyway and are fairly confident that when we get ready to take on the plaster wall by our front door that we can accomplish the task


Here’s our finished product…before the wall was dry. It’s mostly dry now and has lightened a bit to be similar in color to the stuff above. Luckily the paint we took off the shelf was nearly the same color as that on the wooden beams…but when the new stuff goes on it has a lot of red tint to it which kind of freaked me out for a bit. We didn’t want to have to repaint all the beams on this side immediately but if the new color was going to be that noticeable, we’d have a problem. Thankfully when it dried, though, it was nearly the same, just the shine of t
he new paint gives it away.


We didn’t have nearly enough paint to do all the wood trim (no idea why we though 275 ml would be sufficient) so we will need to go back and buy paint this weekend. But we are also planning to buy the white paint for the walls in here and wooden floor tiles and hope to get this room looking great and nearly finished before the party. The benches won’t be constructed but it will still be a vast improvement over what it looked like before!

We elected for wooden floor tile panels instead of the tile because it would have been far too slick and we also would have needed to level the floor a lot more, learn how to lay tile and so on. It also would be massively dirty all the time which is not really a prospect I welcome. There is enough to worry about around here already. But we started to think that perhaps we could just put outdoor patio flooring in here which prevent slippage and should look quite nice…and then we realized we would actually come out cheaper buying 50×50 cm wooden tiles instead of planks so we’ll go that route. It should be worlds easier to accomplish this way anyway which always sounds good!