2015.07.08
My wife has been pining for me to do the bathroom for 2 years now…it was time to satisfy!
I promised the kids I’d let them help, and they too have been hankering to participate. On that account, I am truly blessed…
I let them help with the first coat, since that can always be fixed in a jiffy. They had a lot of fun, and for me it was great to know that they were playing around with stuff that was absolutely not going to harm them in any way.
After the first coat was done, it was time to get down to serious business…
The ceiling was completed first, and then continued on with the feature wall: a gradient from dark to light (called ombre´, if you care about these things). I also added mica to the mixes, which doesn’t really show in the photos very well, but the wife loves it. #happywifehappylife
You will notice there is also some “open” spaces in the (loma) plaster, a feature requested by the “client”. Whats really neat about this one is that the background colour looks very light near the bottom and quite dark near the top. All an optical illusion, since in reality the background is exactly the same colour. The space is a bit too cramped to show this effect in the photos, but you get the idea.
About $300 of materials has gone into this project, plus 2.5 days of (FUN, FUN, FUN!) labour…all this in a home we don’t own. Why would I–or anyone else–want to “waste” money on something that is 5 to 6 times more expensive than paint??
Well first, it depends on how you measure ROI. Natural clay plaster improves the quality of the space NOW. Significantly. Those are MY kids, MY family that spend huge amounts of time in the bathroom. For me it’s a no brainer. This is the healthiest choice I can make for them, as far as walls go. If you insist on thinking of clay plaster as a paint alternative, then this is THE healthiest paint. Period. I’d do it even if I thought it was uglier than “regular” paint. Which it isnt. Oh so far from it. It’s drop dead gorgeous! Just ask Amy (not pictured here…she’s camera shy). And Isha and Maya.
My business runs on products from a local store called Riva’s the Ecostore. Besides carrying all the natural plasters we use, they are chock-full of healthy stuff for you and your home (or office)…and it’s my defacto showroom. (hint, hint!) If you want to know more about the clay plaster I use, read all about it at the American Clay website here.
Note: The first thing Isha did after it was complete was to take a 12 minute shower with door closed and no fan on. He’s heard me so many times tell clients of the clay plaster’s ability to absorb (breathe) water fast enough that it completely mitigates fog in the mirrors. He decided to test me on that. Guess what happened?
That will be the content of the next post, which will include a time-lapse video.
