Plaster in an Old House, Old Closets, Horse hair plaster

Interior of under stair closet

When working on an old house, you never know what you are going to find. Start a project, and it may come back to bite you in the derriere. Any project can go bad as fast as removing one board. Pandora's box opens and you can't put it back the way it was...all bets are off.

On the other hand you can remove a board and find Alice's Wonderland, a magic surprise you never would have guess was under cover.  That wonderland could be some high quality molding, a hidden transom window, or hardwood floors. If you are doing a house,you know what I an referring to. We have all been there,. This little discovery was not so much hidden as not recognized when covered up by storage and not studied for what it is. Our under stair closet is the little surprise this time. Fortunately it is little and it was a pleasant surprise, one we can tolerate and appreciate for its origins in its time period..

Original plaster walls inside closet

We emptied this closet in preparation for Christmas decorating. By taking everything out of this closet. We took inventory of our Christmas decoration stock, and found a revelation on the closet wall.  The closet it seems, has never had paint on the walls. Our revelation was that the walls are raw plaster. Somehow nobody has ever painted it over the last one hundred and "forty plus" years.Considering all of the layers of paint discovered on the floors walls and everywhere else you can inmagine in the house in the house, it is surprising that this area escaped renewal.

Horsehair in plaster

It is a natural local plaster. The plaster is obviously made from seashells which are very plentiful in our area, It has a gray tone to it.   It is composed of horsehair mixed with what appears to be ground up seashells. The texture is very granular. The second surprising revelation was those horsehair fibers sticking out of a section that has lost a chunk of plaster due to a ding in the wall.  Examining and investigating the walls of that closet a felt like being in a time machine. It took me back to what building a house in the 1870s must have been. It must have been as local as possible, quite basic and rustic. Things must have been rough out here in the country. Count me in for modern living, I can do without the rustic version of home