Restoration & Refurbishment

Internal wall finish for very old cottage with stone/lime/soil walls.

Anonymous user 23/02/2024 - 2.58 PM

Hi All, I hope you can help. I have a cottage that has had a lot of work done to it and is now basically a structurally sound and dry shell. The back wall was into a hillside and until recently was like a small internal waterfall feature in the winter, this therefore was leading to the floor being full of moisture (puddles at times) and damp everywhere. Also the whole cottage was cement rendered on the outside so inevitably with damp trapped in the walls. Equally there was coat upon coat of modern filler plaster packed onto the inside walls and some (soaking) vapour block board here and there. All gone now - floor out, walls back to stone, back wall all plugged and membraned and joined into new floor dpm over the top of 6" insulation and a nice gypsum floor put over the top with underfloor heating in it. Now I'm stuck in the debate about what to do with the finish of the other interior walls. There shouldn't be any more damp coming into the cottage from the ground, so it will only be in the walls. The outside is all hacked off and re-pointed with lime so it is breathable therefore if I cement render the inside, any moisture in the walls can still get out ((?) to the outside) and I have a good firm finish to fix pictures/shelves etc. to. But I have a nagging doubt that I should use a breathable product and go with a lime render? But this will give me a "soft" finish that I cant put fixings into. Ultimately, before everyone says to dot and dab it and skim, I don't wan't a smooth flat finish. Its an old property and needs that undulating chunky cornered solid look about it, not like the inside of a cardboard box. All thoughts gratefully received :-)