.
Another view of the aged earthen plaster, old adobe wall concept room we were asked to create inside a poured pumice crete round home office south of Santa Fe, New Mexico. It should be noted that we were brought in as subcontractors on this job (our first time as subs), and were simply there to help create the earthen touches in the form of plasters and earthen floors.
The owner wanted us to use the variety of clays from his land, of which there we many to choose from. Other images in this photo gallery will highlight a bit of the range of colors found onsite.
It was requested that we lay into the wall the look of an old window which had been closed-in as was often done in the early days of adobe construction in the Southwest (top of image, left of center). Random adobe bricks and items were simply placed into the walls to fill in the holes then buried with earthen plasters. So back in the day, those constructing them didn’t feel the need to make the infill perfect as we have found time and again when we have worked on adobe restoration projects. So, we opted for that same scattered look and filled the hole in willy nilly, so to speak.
Carolyn then began working on creating the aged, crumbling earthen plaster effect with details around the tops and bottom of the walls and surrounding the windows. She began by creating the strongest earthen plaster mix she could, and then laid it upon the walls with a trowel and proceeded to scrape and cut back to give the effect of the crumble.