We haven’t made a post in a while because we haven’t done one big thing to require one. Just a few things that still felt like progress. Especially getting a skip to clear out some more rubbish!

This was full of bin bags with rubbish in, it was gross.. you can breathe easier walking around outside now.

I also got fed up enough of the cracks around the house when we noticed ants in them. I did not like the idea of ants digging out all the earth in between the stones of the house. So down went some poison (sorry ants ?) and I started filling the cracks in. I also thought it’d be cool to use some of the extra tiles to make the occasional mosaic in the larger cracks.

I also went to a workshop on lime mortars at Roundtower Lime in Innishannon. The guys there are absolutely lovely, very helpful and knowledgeable. I also really liked how they weren’t dismissive of me for being a woman trying to do a man’s job. I get that often enough that I appreciate it when it doesn’t happen. Which is a shame really, being pleased at basic human decency, but that’s another conversation! I came away from the workshop feeling motivated, hopeful and reassured that I haven’t made any blunders so far.

The owner of the business started it all by slaking his own lime in order to rebuild the castle in Innishannon that belongs to his family. It had burned down a century ago and was a ruin, but they did an amazing job and it’s now a family home.

They told us the story of how this was built: the decorations at the edges were a mix of hand formed and from silicone moulds. The centre parts were molded by hand on the ground and then stuck up there. The original guy who worked on it was there and could answer all our questions about it.

We were all impressed anyway but were shocked when we realised the state of the castle before they’d started. It was a proper ruin!

They gave us lunch in the family kitchen too, that was a nice touch.

In other news we’ve spent a week or two building the ceiling in the red room. We went about it all backwards because the initial idea was to have tiles and a coffered ceiling. So we put the coving up first. Then we decided we really shouldn’t spend so much money on a ceiling so nixed most of that. So then I had to plaster the ceiling with coving already up, which was just a shit time. RIP neck muscles. It’s not the neatest job but it’s ok as long as you don’t stand on a stool to examine it! We haven’t finished so ignore those parts but here’s a sneak peek to show the colours which I LOVE.