Cosmetic pointing

As I mentioned in my January building progress update, I’ve been pointing the internal cracks in the mortar of the exposed masonry internal walls.

We to put in two openings, one at ground and one at first floor level, from the main room of the barn into the smaller, two storey section that now houses the kitchen (on the ground floor) and a bedroom (on the first floor). These ‘doorways’ go through an internal wall that has been left as dressed stone on one side and was bag pointed (that is coated with a thin lime based sand render) on the other. The violence of cutting the openings had cracked some of the mortar so some touching-up and filling of cracks with a carefully blended lime mortar was in order.

From Pointing

I made a ‘carefully’ blended mortar from the sweepings of the dried mortar that had crumbled off the wall, lose pieces of mortar taken from the wall and crushed up, some of the original pit sand that I scavenged from the small amount left in a corner of the yard and some fresh lime putty. Scraping the joints clean, I carefully pointed with a small tool (pictured), then smoothed with a rag to get a more blended finish.

From Barn Conversion 2012

This, along with filling the edge between the masonry and dry lined walls with a flexible filler means that the internal masonry walls are completed (although the oak lintels could do with a clean, there’s a concrete lintel to cover … There’s always something!)