Art???

I have been plastering this evening. It's been absolutely ages since I did any plastering, and I'd forgotten how much fun I have doing it. I get better at it every time I try, and by the time this house is finished I should be REALLY good at it. We had a giant hole to fill and wires to cover up in Dylan's room (which is temporarily our room so we can work on it late at night and I am closer to the bathroom for my pregnancy).

I remember viewing a home in the St. George Parade of Homes where the walls had been plastered the "old fashioned" way. The plaster had been mixed with a colored glaze and had been rubbed with a trowel to heat and shine the plaster. At the time I thought those hand-plastered walls were stunning, and I still do. I certainly never thought that several years later I would be perfecting the technique myself.

I think that hand plastering is a dying art in the U.S. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think most homes are done by machine. I'm not really up on my building techniques, but it certainly doesn't look hand done. It's too uniform and perfect. I remember watching the plasterers do our front room when I was pregnant with Dylan--it was amazing! Plastering is hard work, and it really does take a lot of practice to get good at it. Even though a finished room isn't a work of art, doing the work certainly is. Professional plasterers are really skilled craftsmen.

My work isn't that good, but one of the advantages of living in a nearly 200 year old house is that you can have things like slightly imperfect plaster and it just adds to the character of the house. If we had perfectly smooth sections of wall in the nursery, it just wouldn't look right. The original plaster is old and lumpy and wavy, so my slightly imperfect patching job, once it's been painted, will blend right in!

In non-mundane house news, we are flying on TUESDAY! Still dreading the flight, but I've got Dylan's clothes all ready to pack, and I've started on mine. We know what we want to take in our carry-on--just have to actually put it in. I hope it goes well, and I am so excited to see all my American friends and family!