Light Above.

Original 70's ceiling asbestos and plaster coating.

 Some home improvement updates now. After our holiday we had a company booked to come and strip the ceilings in our living-, dining-, bed-room and 2 small hallways of their textured coatings.
This coating, consisting of plaster mixed with asbestos, was sprayed on in the 70's to create a fashionable texture look. All dust and spiderwebs stick to it and even if you use a soft brush on the vacuum cleaner, it will start to crumble off. Yikes! So I didn't touch it!
The texture absorbed light and did not reflect it back.
There were beautiful original 1940's cornices hiding under it.
We moved out for a couple of days, after emptying most of the house into the garage upstairs, and downstairs into the smaller bedrooms.
Had a lovely stay at my brothers' house, nice bonus!
 The layer was quickly and safely removed by wet steaming and scraping it off like porridge, all the rooms were encased in plastic, which was all taken away.
Great!

After stripping the textured layer.

 Then a bunch of very weathered ceilings came to light.
 It looks very "wabi-sabi" ...
Well, they'll have to be tackled 1 by 1.

1940's plaster cornices in ugly state.

Some of the old plaster cornices had cracks in them and bits fallen off, even a couple of holes in the living room that had a leak above it, now fixed by The Man. (For the plaster to have worn away, how long had that leak been there already?)

3 New layers of plaster in the dining room.

So then we employed a professional plasterer, who luckily had some spare time within 2 days of the stripping job, and he re-plastered the dining room with 3 new layers.
 Since that was the room we want to concentrate on first.
He did a lovely job.

Cornices fixed up and sanded.

Then The Man fixed up the damaged cornices, sanded them, painted them with a special paint.
He was very careful, and as always, meticulous.
Although he criticised his own work....

Painting the cornices carefully.

Then he painted the ceilings several times, all at night. He never saw them in the daytime, as he had to go to work, but it turned out beautifully fresh and smooth.

A fresh, white, smooth dining room ceiling!

 The new wallpaper has been ordered in a fresh light aqua blue, but we'll have to wait another 6 weeks as it has to come from Germany. Plenty of time for the next jobs; getting the fireplace out and stripping the wallpaper off.
There is a second woodfire in the dining room which we don't need. We had the house insulated last year and we always have the rooms open to the woodfire in the living room.
The firebox is already out and sold to a friend, chimney and all.
 Next: the ugly dark brick fire place surround is coming away!

A new macho toy to tackle the bricks!

Oh Yes!  Just you watch out!