This view is of the new earthen plastered living room as it looks into the kitchen.
Red tints in the earthen plastered living room were not added. They came straight from the clay soil harvested in the area. We are very lucky in New Mexico to be able to find soil with enough clay content without supplementing with additional clay for earthen plasters. In our area are also fortunate to have many varieties of colors with which to choose from – straight from the ground. White, red, yellow, tans and green and even purples are some of the colors we have found in local soil clays.
The adobe walls in this room were stripped down, when needed, to raw adobe brick. Or repaired and filled in to help support a fresh plaster. Much of this house was plastered with a gypsum and then painted, as was the technique in it’s day. The owners wanted to restore the home to a more classic and traditional adobe look. We were happy to comply.
Once the walls were repaired and restored, we set about cleaning up the original ceiling. Again keeping the old rough-sawn lumber intact and freshening up the vigas.
New engineered antique “barn wood” flooring was laid throughout the living room. A brand which required only to place and attach to the sub floor. No additional sanding or sealing was required. It was a good choice to keep costs down while giving a bit of a rustic “chic” upgrade to the old home.
Finally we helped create a small tiled pad for the fireplace to raise the fireplace off the floor. It serves to protect the new flooring. We donated some Talavera tiles we had on hand to execute the small pad. It contrasted nicely with the reddish tones of the new earthen plastered living room walls.
Shown in additional photos in this gallery will be the windows installed. As well as the doorway we turned into a window. This small 800 sq. ft. home had 4 door entrances – quite a bit! One of those we closed up to install a window. And the other,closed up the space to create more wall space in the bedroom.
It was a pleasure to watch this small house transform into something very sweet when in the end. We were happy to provide a good amount of design assistance on this project.