Essential Natural Plasters

Natural plasters made of clay, lime, and other materials mixed with sand are beautiful building finishes. Fun to work with, low-impact, and allowing infinite creativity, they are high performance and provide proven, centuries-long durability. Yet until now there’s been no resource that has pulled together the best North American plaster recipes and how-to into one place. Essential Natural Plasters covers it all: Sourcing and selecting materials, including site-soils; Clay, lime, and gypsum plasters as well as fibers and amendments; Interior and exterior use and specialty plasters such as tadelakt for bathrooms; Preparing substrates, from straw bales and cob to lath and Sheetrock; How to set up a safe, efficient worksite; Mixing, testing, tinting, repairing, and applying plasters; Coveted recipes from leading plasterers in Ontario, Vermont, New Mexico, France, and New Zealand. Richly illustrated and deeply researched, Essential Natural Plasters is the must-have resource for owner-builders and professionals alike.