WITH CEILINGS FINISHED, MASONS NOW PLASTER THE WALLS
Poplar Forest Newsletter, Spring 2003

Big changes continue inside Jefferson’s house.

Over the winter, masons completed plastering all the ceilings in the main-floor rooms that are to be fully restored and they started work on the walls of the entrance passage.

Masons have applied the requisite three coats of lime plaster to the ceilings in Jefferson’s bedroom, the parlor, the central or dining room, and one of the two small rooms flanking the home’s entrance passage. The ceilings of the other two rooms on the main story -the other small room adjacent to the entryway and the east bedroom used by family and guests- will not be plastered. By remaining entirely unplastered, those rooms will continue to convey the story of both the original construction and restoration. In those rooms visitors in future years will still have the opportunity to see the bare brick walls and the wooden joists and rafters of the ceilings that reveal the construction techniques of the period as well as the nature of the house as Jefferson lived in it during construction.

With the ceiling plastering completed, the masons moved on to the task of plastering the walls, starting with the wood-framed walls of the entrance hall. Their first step was to nog or fill the walls with brick just as they had done with the alcove bed frame last fall and the cellar ceilings a year earlier. Jefferson considered the brick to be fire and sound proofing.

While the entrance hall’s walls will be entirely plastered, this year visitors who step into the adjacent room will see, on the other side of the northeast wall, how these walls are constructed. Visitors will view the nogging within the wood framing of that wall, then the next layer: the split laths nailed to the studs over the brick nogging. The laths are to help anchor the plaster. This new display next shows the three different layers of plaster and the pine plaster grounds for the entablature, chair rail, and base.

The opportunity to witness the masons carrying out the Jefferson-era plastering techniques on the walls is scheduled for the spring and fall, avoiding the hot summer months. Restoration work will also be taking place at the east wing where the restoration carpenters will be handcrafting the joists of the wing of service rooms.