Transition Culture

18 Jul 2008

Game for a Lath: a traditional technique in a modern setting

Today’s post is going to be mainly visual. I popped round the other day to my friends Paul and Ivana’s house, a new thatched cob house just round the corner from where I live, which you read more about at their building blog. They are using lath and plaster for all the walls and ceilings upstairs and have reached the stage where they have pretty much finished and are preparing for plastering. It is a stunning sight, as you will see, indeed most people I know who have used laths have toyed with the idea of not plastering it at all, given the it is so attractive. What follows are some photos of a walk around the upstairs of their house.

The house is kidney shaped, and so the inner surface of the thatched roof is curvaceous in the extreme. Using plasterboard would have meant that the gorgeous inner shapes would have been largely lost.

Putting up this many laths makes you extremely grateful to the inventor of the nail gun!