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Wayne Mays of Price Masonry applies lime wash to a brown coat of plaster at Montpelier. Mays and his crew
Lewis Rucker of Price Masonry brushes lime wash onto a kitchen ceiling at Montpelier.
Robby Kold (left) and Alex Headley of Price Masonry apply a scratch coat of plaster to a ceiling at Montpelier. The wood laths help hold the mixture in place. |
THERE ARE FEW people on the planet more passionate about lime-based plaster than Wayne Mays and others at the unique business in Amherst that he represents.
With only a glance, Mays can tell what has been used to bind and thicken the final coat of a historically correct plaster--horsehair, goat hair or hog hair.
"Goat will be silkier, while the hog hair will be much coarser," said Mays. "In the restoration here at Montpelier, we're using horsehair."
Mays is heading up a team of highly skilled plaster and masonry workers who've been putting in long hours at the Orange County estate since January of last year.
When they've finished the lion's share of their plaster work next month, the team that's the construction arm of Virginia Lime Works will have gone through some 85
It's all part of the restoration that's taking the mansion back to the size, form and finishes that Dolley and James Madison--the father of the U.S. Constitution--knew in the 1820s.
The restoration project, which kicked off in December of 2003 and removed whole sections
A restoration celebration is set for Sept. 17, Constitution Day, to mark the completion of the architectural restoration.
It will be followed by a period when the house will be furnished and experts will use other historical research to make decisions about wall coverings, paint and more.
Mays and his crew have been living at the estate not far from the town of Orange four days a week for more than a year now.
From stripping away layers of modern plaster to installing scratch and then final coats of the historically accurate lime-based plaster, they've slowly given the living spaces in the re-emerging home the look and feel of its day.
While historically accurate for Montpelier, the lime-based mortars and plasters are what Mays and Virginia Lime Works manufacture and passionately believe in--for both restorations and new homes.
Between plaster coats in a second-story Montpelier room on a recent morning, Mays ticked off the advantages of the lime-based products that are Virginia Lime Works' niche.
He said they're more flexible than cement-based products, allow vapors and moisture to pass through them and have chemical properties that can actually mend fissures or cracks.
He added that there's also an environmentally friendly reason to think about using a lime product.
He said that at certain times and situations, "It will actually absorb carbon dioxide. Your home can improve the environment."
At Montpelier, where lime plaster is being applied in base and finish coats and
Mays noted that much of the lathing--wooden strips split from oak or pine that the plaster is applied over--was still in place in the house. Where it wasn't,
The lime used for the plaster and other coatings
Mays said the process involves the firing of some form of calcium carbonate--be it limestone, oyster shell or coral--in a hot kiln for 14 hours or more.
The finished material produced from that process is combined with water, sand or other materials to make plaster and other building materials.
Mays credits principal Jimmy Price at Virginia Lime Works with giving him a start in the business, and teaching him enough to make it more a calling than just a job.
"You can't be great at something without a passion for what you're doing," said Mays, whose pride in working on the Madison house restoration matches that of many of the other specially skilled artisans working there.
John Jeans, heading up the restoration, said there are still a list of things to be finished before the restoration celebration. But he said they aren't of the scale of the larger construction challenges already solved.
Things on the to-do list range from jobs such as lime-washing the portico columns to installing stairs and decks to the installation of a restroom facility well to the rear of the house.
Jeans noted that even when the major construction work is done, there will be a period of a year or more during which construction materials will cure and moisture levels will stabilize in the home, which will have newly installed heating and cooling systems.
montpelier.org virginialimeworks.com
Rob Hedelt: 540/374-5415
Email: rhedelt@freelancestar.com
