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<\/a><\/p>\nToday’s task was \u00a0 to get the adobe blocks in the new master bedroom cleaned up. \u00a0 Adobe is a very delicate building product — not as hard as cement blocks or bricks, and susceptible to water damage. \u00a0 The interior side of these blocks was damaged by several things, and now we need to clean it up.<\/p>\n
First of all, these blocks were never intended to see the light of day. \u00a0 The original blueprints from the house show that the room was specified to be covered with birch paneling, which it was. We ripped down the paneling to see if we could expose the block, as it is exposed in other rooms of the house. Unfortunately, the block was not cleaned up during construction, so excess mortar and other blights were visible on it.<\/p>\n
The cosmetics of the blocks got worse when we removed furring strips that were holding the paneling. \u00a0 Pulling a nail out of burnt adobe block results in \u00a0 a big chunk of the blog spalling, meaning that we created dozens of craters in the faces of the blocks. \u00a0 You can see some particularly obvious examples to the right of the window.<\/p>\n
Finally, there was a roof leak at some point in the past which resulted in the discoloration of the block in the corner (left hand side of the photo above). \u00a0 All of these problems made us consider covering up the blocks again, but we really like the look of them, so we brought in an adobe specialist to see if they could be restored without breaking the bank.<\/p>\n
It turns out they can, and our adobe specialist, Leigh, showed up today to start the process. \u00a0 With some bleach and water she removed much of the discoloration and efflorescence, and then started in with her secret mix of adhesives, cements, and colorants to fix the blocks. \u00a0 Adobe block repair is almost an art, and so the specialists protect their processes from their competitors, so I didn’t get many specific answers to my questions about what exactly she was applying to the walls. \u00a0 She’ll be at it for a few days.<\/p>\n
Back to the store with that! \u00a0 Our last composite sink (Swanstone) never chipped and the color went all the way through. \u00a0 I had no idea there was such diversity of composite sinks. \u00a0 The one we put in Project Vintage Thunder never chipped either. \u00a0 We searched online for an emergency replacement and bought it ten minutes later. \u00a0 It should arrive in plenty of time for the appliance installation at the end of the month.<\/p>\n<\/a>Chris and Sergio came back today to finalize the windows, which look great, and we discussed a few other projects they’ll come back for in the next few weeks. Eleanor happened to mention her new composite kitchen sink, and Chris had a few things to say about the quality of certain types of sink. \u00a0 He casually dropped a steak knife into the sink, as you might when washing dishes, and the sink chipped<\/em>. \u00a0 Not only did it chip, but it chipped white<\/em> — the color is only about 1\/16″ deep!<\/p>\n