plaster and stucco jobs in progress January, 2014-Virginia, Northern VA, Washington, DC area

                              Jobs in progress

   15th anniversary!!
                 updated January 22, 2014
    15 years of jobs in progress, update #133!
I started jobs in progress in January, 1999, when I registered my domain.
                               Jobs in Progress number 1 is still here.
Jobs in progress contains some 400+ pages. Here, you will find a wealth of information on the world's oldest building trade, plaster, both interior plaster, and exterior cement plaster, also known as stucco. Please click on the last update button for more.
Keep checking back. We have finished more unique projects, it was just too much for now.


The fire pit is heated with a gas log and is filled with gravel. See how we did it.	Curved seat starts out as blocks. See how we did it.

The seat itself is made using inch and a half channel iron and metal lath. Here an piece of corner rite, a strip of lath bent at an angle, is used to reinforce the seat and the backrest. More details...	Bricks are used for the fire pit to allow a tighter radius. No, we aren't bricklayers. We only lay bricks when they get stuccoed over and don't matter much what they look like. More details.....

Stucco addition on a Spanish style house
in Chevy Chase.


This Spanish style house has a Spanish tile roof and a Spanish texture. You can't get much more Spanish than this without going to Spain. More details...	Stucco arches and decorative cast columns accent the Spanish style. See how we did it....

Spanish texture adds a dreamy movement and depth to the appearance of the wall. More info...	A close up of the Spanish texture on the old house. The Spanish texture reminds me of Southern California. More...

Historic aggregated stucco finish
Afton, Virginia

Basement on this old house
livened up with white pebble dash stucco.
Chevy Chase

These basement
walls on this old
house in Chevy
Chase look right
at home with
a pebble dash
finish.

Plaster

We're patching a lot of plaster these days seeing how it is cold outside.
Here, metal lath
is screwed over the old wood lath.
We never reuse the
wood and only use REAL plaster and not drywall materials like easy sand and compound.
Molding plaster and lime allows same day completion.

Thanks for visiting my site. That's all for now. I'll have plenty more next update.
A truth about stucco in Reston, Virginia, plastering a historic house, re coating concrete and more.
Please check back.


A view of the old house shows different colored rocks and crushed green glass embedded in the stucco. The old glass was made from wine bottles broken up and screened to size.	Another satisfied customer poses with pride.

The addition was brown coated and abandoned by a stucco contractor. I guess he chickened out on putting on the finish. Fortunately, the brown coat was neat and straight and well done. Note my heater, if you are wondering how we do this in the winter.	I matched the rock color fairly close and screened the rocks to size. I used stained glass instead of wine bottles. I got a reflective green glass from Jed at Washington Art Glass.


Serpent like retaining walls are re-stuccoed. You can see my heater in the background. The finish coat is white portland cement and white sand. The white sand is medium grit crushed quartz .	Eight year old synthetic stucco finish is badly deteriorated. The whole house can be peeled off with your fingernail. This material, when applied over a cement basecoat lasts less than 8 years. This practice should stop! We replaced it with REAL cement and REAL sand.