A few weeks ago, we had the plasterers in to lime plaster the bathroom walls. They also offered to fit our oak windowsills as part of the service, so we agreed.
Wish we hadn’t, mind…
The plasterers did a beautiful job of the plastering, and we’re really pleased.
We wanted curved window returns, and smooth as possible everywhere else (given that it’s lime and a very old house, we weren’t expecting or wanting perfectly modern smooth).
Isn’t it beautiful?
The windowsills, though, were another matter.
Honestly, I don’t know what goes through people’s heads sometimes — what they think is acceptable, and what they think their clients will think is acceptable.
We bought a great big chunk of green oak from Ludlow Salvage, which is gorgeous, and our plan was to cut it to size and fit it in the windows.
So we explained what we wanted to the plasterers, had a chat, and they said no problem. Off they went.
I checked in every now and then cos I work in the garden, but didn’t want to be an annoying hovering client.
Should’ve hovered.
Because instead of doing what we would have done — scribed the edges of the unplastered window returns to get a snug fit before the plastering was done — the workdude guessed.
We assume he guessed, anyway, because the fit wasn’t anything like snug on one window, and he just flat out cut out a big square chunk for the other window.
And the plasterers didn’t plaster over them to cover the gaps.
And on the other one, they filled the hole with plaster. Good lord.
Massive eye roll all round.
Sloppy AF.
Lime plastering is enormously expensive, so we did not find this amusing, especially given we absolutely could have done a better, neater job of this ourselves.
After much arguing and withholding of balances, they eventually came around and did an appalling job of “fixing” it.
They tried to argue that the wood was “inadequate”, whatever the hell that meant. At this point, I got Joe to do the talking because the usual Men Talking Down To Women bullshit happened and honestly it’s exhausting and I had a lot of sharp objects to hand, so I couldn’t be bothered.
Whereupon we did some more arguing and withholding of balances, and generally grumbled about standards and wasted time.
And eventually they did an acceptable fix. It’s not ideal, and we’re still pretty annoyed, but at this point it was dimishing returns.
I know most people won’t notice, but I do, and it’s like a gnat bite. Unimportant but irritating.
Still, it looks flipping gorgeous now because we sanded the sills until all the watermarks and saw marks were gone, and gave it several coats of Osmo oil, and now they glow in the sunlight.
Sloppy workmanship aside, we’re deeply happy with this room so far!
We’ve painted the walls and ceiling in Flutterby chalk paint by Earthborn, and it looks gorgeous.
