1000 sqft Cutie in Pt Townsend, WA

[Pala]

Hi  all.

I'm getting ready to start building my parents a getaway place.  We're considering the 1~1/2 storey with shed dormers like the nice example I saw in one of the other posts.

My wife and I just finished a 1000 sqft house on the lot nextdoor.  We use it as a rental.  Here's a link to lots of photos:

http://www.kinnik.com/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album01

We started with stock internet plans, you see the same ones over and over.  I wish I had found John's plans then.  We tweaked it quite a bit and made it our own.  I paid a carpeter friend of mine hourly to work with me to pour, frame, roof and side the 2nd storey.  My wife and I finished the rest of the exterior.   I sub'ed out hanging the drywall, insulation and sewer hookup.  I did everything else myself.  We used Structo-lite as a finish to the walls.  This is a neat look and folks usually have good questions about this techinque that I'm happy to gab about.

John, I have to say that I remember stumbling upon that hidden trail leading to the retreat cabin waaaaaay back when.  Its nice to see that that little website has turned into such a nice community.

Hope to update soon with the new project.  I'm happy to answer any questions about the house we just finished that I linked to.

chuck.

[glenn-k]

Nice project, Chuck.  Glad you found your way here.

[jwv]

Great house, thanks for including the pictures.

So, how easy is Structolite? We'll be doing a lot of earthen inside but want something "real" (not just painted drywall)for the framed walls.

I'm thinking of using Milestone http://www.cementics.com/ for the shower room-has anyone worked with this product?

Judy

[Pala]

Easy?  Well the way we looked at it, easier than trying to do an acceptable job of mudding and taping it ourselves.  The whole upstairs is vaulted with lots of angles and seams.  

Using structo-lite let us not worry about a perfect appearance.  It has its own organic, sloppy character.  You can leave trowel marks or work it to very smooth surfaces, as the look suits you.  Plus you get beautiful rounded corners on everything.  You can build up shelves, mantles, nooks etc.  I built up an archway above the front door by roughly building the shape with 5/8" drywall.  Gluing and screwing any shapes and layers as needed.  Then you just slather that stuff on and start working it.

We spent about $800 on about 80 bags of Structo-lite.  The house is 1000 sqft, but has 13' vaulted ceilings upstairs and 9' ceilings downstairs.  But we saved not having to buy tape, mud, texture and renting a banjo.

It took a lot of hours.  Lots.  So it's definitely not the fast choice if you've got crunch-time going.  But if its all your own time and you have enough, it's my recomendation.  Good natured, willing friends are helpful too.  

It looks and sounds nothing a normal drywall house.  Also, if you do it yourself, you add a feature to your home that if you sub'ed out would be a premium feature.  All just for the time and the PITA.  I've heard some guys in my area are charging $2/sqft. to do a structo-lite application.  Thats wall sqft's like a drywall bid.  Adds up.

I'm happy to discuss technique.  If anyone's interested.  After the first room, we we in the zone.   After that it was just a matter of pouring time and materials into the groove.

[jwv]

Hmmmm this is sounding like the way to go for our home.  I did some sculptural work with earthen plaster/cob in the previous house and loved it. With the cob I added a little more straw to build out whatever shape I wanted and then plastered over it. You are only limited by your imagination (and time). What a great artistic outlet.
I googled and found these pictures

http://homepage.mac.com/stuart_macrae/Stuart'swork/Menu18.html

which really has me thinking-get that drywall up, Rick!

Judy

I'm not sure why this link won't work, copy and paste I guess  


(I tried to make it work also- our program doesn't like it -but as you said, Judy - copy and paste it to your address bar does work- Glenn)

[bil2054]

Wow! Nice job, Pala, both on the house and the documentation.

Thanks for the info on the Structo-lite.  It looks just right to mimic some of the Soutwest styling in the original Victoria's Cottage.

[bartholomew]

It's a beautiful house and I really like the look of the structo-lite. Yes, please post more how-to information.

[Sassy]

I like the Structo-Lite too - beautiful house!  Is it easier than plastering with a cement stucco?  I've done a lot of that & also a lot of cob walls & plastering.  The plastic cement is much easier to work with than the regular kind.  Anyway, I, too, would like to hear more about it, as we will be having a lot of plastering to do down in the "deep part" of our cabin.  

[Dustin]

I've taken an earthplaster workshop (American Clay), and it's pretty stuff, but whoooeee is it expensive. Maybe Structo-lite gets some of the looks for a lot less.
You've got a pretty cool house there.
Are the cabinets IKEAs with alternate doors?
I thought about doing that.

[Pala]

Cool.  I'm glad y'all like what I do.  

Judy:

The link you added shows the work of a guy here in my town.  I've never met him.  But I'm sure I know someone who knows him.  Port Townsend is a small "remote" place.  Structo-lite has taken on like a sort of unconscious virus here.  Not unlike purple front doors. But I digress.

Anyway, that sculptural stuff is exactly what I was talking about.  That's exactly right, you're only limited by your imagination, and your artistic-coordination abilities.


Billy Bob:

Yes it has a look somewhere between old world plaster and soutwest adobe.  Especially with paint color choices.  Which reminds me, I think we will try adding cement dye next time.  See what happens.

Sassy:

I've never applied Stucco myself, but my understanding is that it is sandy and appied to a screen mesh.  The structo-lite process seems more buttery smooth.  Nontheless, a big hawk full of the stuff is fairly heavy.  You have to get it wet enough so that it's not a drag to spread(literaly) yet firm enough to stay on the substrate.  That means stiff mixes for the celings.

Dusin

The Cabinets and bath vanity are from Euro-Rite Cabinets LTD, Pt. Coquitlam, BC.  Now I had a contractor friend order those, so I'm not sure if the sell to ower-builders directly or not.  He also combined 3 different jobs with one order, so they may not take small orders.  Dunno.  

Total for us on those was $1134 USD.    

[jwv]

I've taken an earthplaster workshop (American Clay), and it's pretty stuff, but whoooeee is it expensive.

Dustin, we just made our own.  Sand, clay, water and finely shopped (Whoops, Chopped) straw.  Pretty inexpensive that way.  And it's not that difficult, just takes some experimentation to get the right mix.


Judy

[Sassy]

That's what we've done, also, in most of the areas-the clay, sand & straw.  But on the last section of the house, I used a cement stucco plaster that I applied with trowels & yes, I held up a very heavy load of the mixture on, did you call it a "hawk"?  I tried calling Glenn to ask him what that thing is called, but he didn't answer his phone, so it's the dohicky thing that has a square, flat metal plate on top with a handle in the middle underneath... when I would start out I couldn't hold a whole lot, but as the day would go by I could pile that thing high!  I put it on stucco mesh.

If you look at our underground cabin site, you can see some of the scuptural stuff we did with the clay/straw/sand mixture (cob).  Glenn did most of it, usually I was busy just piling it on to make the cob walls etc.  I did make a 3 ft tall Gecko lizard that looks like it is climbing a wall & on a section beside a window I made a little "flower child" section with a vine winding up the wall & a butterfly, bunny & flower sitting in the curves.  Like Judy said, it is fun working with the stuff.

I'll have to look up the Structo-Lite - it seems like it might be easier than working with the other mediums.  

[Amanda_931]

The clay/sand/straw stuff breathes (it does not breath).  At a guess the Structolite does not.

Which you need will determine which makes more sense.

Lime plaster--takes a good while to set up--seems like it's fun to use.  (see the DVD, Building with Awareness)

Hawk it is.

I found drywall finishing quite easy.  Although for years I did worse in the easy places than I did in the hard.  Makes sense because the easy places take a minimal touch, and I was worrying them too much.

[Jimmy_Cason]

Thanks for the link to your pictures. Looking at the way the metal roof is installed has helped me to think about how I will install mine. Any tips?

[Pala]

Thanks for the link to your pictures. Looking at the way the metal roof is installed has helped me to think about how I will install mine. Any tips?

We cut it using an abrasive disk on a skill saw.  I should say, several abrasive disks.  Lay a couple 2x's parallel to each other and place the cut-line paralel between them and let the sparks fly!!!  We must have measured Hi-spot/Low-spot for each one and cut as we went.  Really glad to have my buddy Scott along on getting it all perfect.  

We set hurricane straps periodically on the ridge with some extra "slack" in the middle.  So that they didn't lay flat, they kinda pooched up a little.  Then Scott would tie off to those with a rope and climbing harness.  He would move his anchor as needed depending on where we were working.  Then as we finished off with the ridgecap, we just banged the straps down flat out of the way.

There is another thread about metal roofing and first time DYI.  I say go for it.  It's not the matterial that's a problem its being able to do high-work.  I couldn't really do much, but Scott's up there scrambling all around.  It will go on 10 times faster than shingles.  We layed out the back slope, which is just a straight shot, in a couple hours.  There's also something in that thread about TYVEK on the roof.  I could be wrong, but you're never gonna TYVEK a horizontal surface like that.  It's a safety hazard.

Oh and don't let me forget.  Pre-drill your screw holes.  As long and your delivery is sitting there all nice and bundled, take a minute and think it out.  Then drill every 24"  if I remember.  Better double check that spacing.  Make sure the stack is straight up and down.  Hammer the edge of the stack with a 2x scrap as buffer, till the edges all line up.  It's a world of difference from not drilling.  In that case you have to sorta whack the butt of the cordless drill and set the screw so that it will bite into the metal.  Plus no measuring or thinking about spacing while you miles up in the air.  Just put a screw in each hole, 1,2,3.  And use a driver with a magnet in the base.

We did 1/2" CDX + Felt + metal.  I think it's 26 guage.  Champion is the maker.  

[Doug_Martin]

The Structo-lite looks interesting -- I like the abode/strawbale/cob look.

Quick question: it looks like you just used regular sheetrock and not blueboard.  Is Structo-lite not "wet" like plaster?  (if that makes any sense)

[Pala]

Yep, its wet and messy.  My understanding of using blueboard is that it is used in locations that are re-wetted periodically; like a bathroom.  I'm hoping that the living room and bedrooms don't see much wetness over the next few decades.  

But, yes we used standard 4'x8'x12' 1/2" on the walls and 5/8" on the celings.  I taped all the seams with 2" fiberglass tape.

[Pala]

I have tried to outline the process I used.  If for no other reason, than to help me remember for next time:


~ We used standard 1/2" on walls 5/8" on ceilings, throughout.  I ordered material myself and stocked it in the house.  We had a small man-lift cherry-picker, which I rigged with a makeshift forklift and loaded drywall up to the second floor balcony.  I sub'ed out hanging this to drywall contractors.  They busted it out in about 3 days.  It was $1300 to the hangers and about $1200 in drywall.  There is a spot in the stairwell over 18'.  Worth sub-ing that out at twice the price.

~ install all door and window trim, baseboards, windowsills.  We wrapped drywall on three sides of the windows with Doug Fir sills and a skirt board.  We used primed MDF for trim.  I ran a 3/8" router bit about an inch from the top of all the baseboards.  It's easy to do stuff like that with MDF and it gives it a nice shadow line that looks way better than plain.  Oh BTW we set all electric boxes and such, an extra 1/8" proud to account for the thickness of the Structo-lite.

~ Mask everything off with tape-edged paper.  Prime the drywall directly with PVA primer.

~ 2" fiberglass tape on all seams

~ Spray walls wet.  Give the next area you're gonna work a nice moisten with a spray bottle.  I found one in the garden section with pumped pressure.  Saves a lotta squeezin'.

~ We did use a Hopper gun some.
     http://www.all-wall.com/acatalog/Marshalltown_Sharpshooter_I__Hopper_Gun.php
It gets mud all over the place, so it worked best on big flat areas.  And became less useful in areas with windows or narrow walls.  Our mix was 6 1 gal nursery plastic pots of structo-lite to 5 qt. gatorade bottles of water (roughly).  When doing a batch for the hopper gun I would add an extra bottle of water.  It's not the perfect tool for this job.  The gun is used to pushing much lighter texture material.  Reduce the pressure valve on the compressor to 25 psi.  Otherwise the air is too strong.  You get a better application with lower pressure.  With the hopper full,  the gravity feed works much better.  As you empty out, it helped to make a sortta "ketchup bottle shake" on it.  A short, sharp movement down and a quick halt to shloosh the stuff down into the gun.


~ mix Structo-lite to the consistency of Cool-Whip.  A brick trowel-full held upside down should stick in a solid lump, but just start to slide off held vertically.  Experiment.  You could tell if it was thick and hard to spread when you got it up on the wall.  On the ceiling it had to be thick enough to stick, which gave the old shoulders and arms a workout.  


~ I'll let you in on a little "secret".  Structo-lite is called Perlited Gypsum Plaster.  And indeed it's fine powder and little crunchy white stones.  When we started, those pieces stuck out all over  and it seemed hard to spread because of all these little hard parts.  But they are your friends.  Let them be your guide to perfect thickness. These little guys are just about 1/8-1/4" dia.  exactly the depth you want to be applying the mud.  So you just have to get it on thick enough to not drag against the perlite.  Just keep pushing and spreading until you hit the perlite, then back off.  Add a little to fill back in and smooth.  Once we figured that out, it was "off to the races."

[Pala]

~ round corners, using the bullnose trowels at the bottom of this page:
http://www.all-wall.com/acatalog/Corner_Tools.php
I think we actually ended up doing square corners with the square inside trowel.  Fill the inside corners with plenty of mud and strike it off with the corner trowel.  You sorta don't return to those corners once you have them looking clean.  On outside corners load up the mesh tape and the gap where the drywall meets at 90 degrees.  Strike this off with the bullnose trowel.  Lovely.  You end ups with 4" mudded areas on either side of each corner.

~ Start adding and spreading mud to the ceiling.  Don't forget to spray wet.  Fill in the field up to your mudded corners.

~ Moving to the walls, work from baseboard up to the mudded corner.  Load up a Large Trowel 14" x 5"
     http://www.all-wall.com/acatalog/Trowels.php
with 4 or 6 good scoops of mud.  Set the bottom edge of the trowel on the top of the baseboard.  Holding the trowel at 45 degrees to the wall,  push the mound of material up, leaving a nice thick swath of material as you go.  I'd usually end up finishing the stroke standing up straight with my hands somewhere between my waist and shoulders.  So it was quite a comfortable repetitive process.  You could tell the mud was too thick when it was sort of an effort to spread it out.  Just keep repeating that vertical stroke with a loaded trowel from an available wet edge.  All the way up the corners

~ Smooth out to just the thickness of the perlite pieces.  If you're too thin, you will hit a perlite piece and it will drag an ugly trough in the mud.  If you "bottom out", apply a scoop of mud to that area and return to smoothing.

~ Now depending on how you're advancing on the learning curve it looks horrid or not too bad.  But what you're looking for here is proper thickness and no tool marks.  Leave, and let the area you've been working firm up a bit.  Some days it was an hour, some days it was 3 or 4 hours.  This step really helped the frustration factor once we figured it out.  If you don't let it sit a bit, you'll just endlessly keep stroking it and going from tool marks here to more tool marks over there.  Just walk away.  Have a beer.  But don't forget you're not done.

~ After resting, it is much firmer than before.  Now you can trowel with quite a goodly amount of pressure, leaving no hard marks.  It smooths a little more with each pass.  Work it till you like the look of it.  I can be rough or very smooth.  The more you work it, the smoother it gets.  At this stage take some plastic wrap (we used wrapper from paint roller refills) and hold it between your thumbs and index finger so that you have couple of inches of taunt plastic.  Then drag that on the outside corners to float out some smoothness.

~ When the mud starts to kick, you will see it.  There is a serious color change, and you can't work it anymore.  At this point, or just before pull the masking off.  It should give you a nice clean finish.

~ The next day I went over the whole thing with a wide taping knife.  Knocking down any tool marks, ridges, exposed perlite, etc.  Ready for paint.

Whew!  Happy to clear up any questions.

[glenn-k]

Thanks for the tips- It helps out to give anyone planning on trying this a head start.

[jraabe]

Chuck:

Thanks for such a complete documentation on your technique with the Structo-lite. It sounds like an interesting material to use up here in the NW where we don't have the clay and natural plaster materials they do down south. Things like this add a lot of humanization to a house when you have a hand worked material as the final coat.

It is one of the hidden psychological reasons folks like adobe, strawbale and earth plaster houses. They look and feel more hand crafted.

Nice job on your project! Glad I finally got a chance to read through it all.  

PS - I added a direct link in the Referral Links section so it can be found later.

[ron]

Hi, Ron here (also in Port Townsend).

I've got a house that I'd like to use Structolite on, over drywall.

http://homepage.mac.com/ronaldschmidt1/PhotoAlbum5.html

I had a few questions:

I noticed a suggestion elsewhere to mount the drywall backwards, with the paper backing facing out as a rougher surface for the plaster to stick to. What do you think of this?

I'm pretty sure I'm going to get the hopper gun, it seems like you have mixed feelings about its usefulness. Will it really help?

I've got a 960 square foot house, with vaulted ceilings, some new drywall, and some existing, textured walls that have been painted. I was planning to prime those (with the PVA, same as the fresh drywall).

I'm trying to do this by myself, so I know it will be a dance to mix and plaster. Is this possible? Where would I best employ a helper, mixing?

Thanks for the help, Ron.

[ron]

Hi, Ron again.

Just noticed a USG product called ROCKLATH, it's 3/8 thick and comes in 16 inch wide strips (48 long). This is what has been used on my house on the interior walls, so I thought it would be fine to use it on the new walls also. Do you think it would be OK on the ceilings, too? Sure would be nice to use something lighter. Thanks!

[ron]

OK, never mind! (ron again)

Just got a price on ROCKLATH, it's 30 bucks a bundle (2 sheets of 2x8) so it's MORE expensive than regular drywall. Guess I won't be using it.

[glenn-k]

Welcome to the forum, Ron.  I haven't used the Structolite but it looks like an interesting product.

To me since the cardboard paper on the back of the sheetrock is not intended to be a finished surface, I would wonder about how it would perform over the long term, and feathering edges - filling all the seams where the cardboard paper edges are exposed could be trouble - no taper to fill and reinforce so all seams would be bumps to deal with.