This small adobe house in Dixon, New Mexico which was built in perhaps the mid 1940’s has been renovated room by room, in this case – gold earthen plasters in dining room shown here. The house with adobe brick walls is roughly just over 600 square feet, with most of the rooms coming in at about 200 square feet. The house has over time become a lovely space due to the great taste of the current owner, a friend.
This image highlights the small dining are in which we poured a cement floor with in-floor radiant heat tubing, to provide the main heat source. We also knocked out an adobe wall space and installed this french doors seen in the photo, right.
The charge was to create a gold high end earthen plaster using kaloin clays with heavy small chopped straw and mica content. For those who are not familiar with mica, it is a rock substance which is found throughout New Mexico and literally sparkles. Think glitter – found in the natural rocks and surrounding areas. When added to a plaster, the light and shimmer effects on the exterior of the plaster can create a stunning effect. Mica also has the added benefit of making an earthen plaster stronger. It serves as a strong substance in earthen plasters like sand, but with most definitely a more beautiful look and feel to it.
The gold plasters we applied helped brighten up this small place while adding rich tones which served as a nice backdrop to the many pieces of art existing in this home. We were pleased with the results and were called back later to create the same effect in the connecting room seen in the photo – (right background in this image).