Essential Natural Plasters

About the Authors

Michael Henry has researched plasters and plastered his way across Ontario for the past decade, plastering for Camel's Back Construction and Straworks. His attention to detail and mad-scientist plaster experiments have made him a noted expert in the field and a sought-after workshop leader on plasters at the Endeavour Centre. Michael is co-author of Ontario's Old-Growth Forests, and he lives in Peterborough, Ontario with his wife and two children. He shares his plastering knowledge at thesustainablehome.net.

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Tina Therrien started plastering in 1997 as part of Camel's Back Construction, the first straw bale building company in Ontario. One of the founding members of the Ontario Natural Building Coalition, Tina has made numerous contributions in the natural building world and has plastered in France and Haiti. Passionate about food, gardening, and chickens, Tina lives in a modest timber frame home with her spouse, daughter, their flock of chickens, and their slowly expanding gardens. She is co-author of More Straw Bale Building, and she operates Shelter By Hand, a timber framing company, with her spouse. She lives in Low, Quebec.

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Essential Natural Plasters

A Guide to Materials, Recipes, and Use

by Michael Henry & Tina Therrien

Natural plasters made of clay, lime, and other materials mixed with sand are beautiful building finishes. Fun to work with, low-impact, and allowing infinite creativity, they are high performance and provide proven, centuries-long durability.

Yet until now there's been no resource that has pulled together the best North American plaster recipes and how-to into one place. Essential Natural Plasters covers it all:

Sourcing and selecting materials, including site-soils
Clay, lime, and gypsum plasters as well as fibers and amendments
Interior and exterior use and specialty plasters such as tadelakt for bathrooms
Preparing substrates, from straw bales and cob to lath and sheetrock
How to set-up a safe, efficient worksite
Mixing, testing, tinting, and applying plasters and plaster repair
Coveted recipes from leading plasterers in Ontario, Vermont, New Mexico, France, and New Zealand.

Richly illustrated and deeply researched, Essential Natural Plasters is the must-have resource for owner-builders and professionals alike.