As per usual, I feel guilty for not posting more updates on my work in the garden.
The weather has been outstandingly hot the last two weeks, as you would no doubt have noticed if you are UK based! This has been great for my plastering inside the building, but not brilliant for working outside – it’s far too hot!!
Before the hot weather struck, I found some time to get the patio outside of the building finished. Where the tyres end, I built up a wooden step and this frames the patio area very nicely.
On the patio, I got hold of a great cable reel which I nicely asked for down an industrial estate. It wasn’t very well protected from future element exposure, so I found a woodstain which was the right colour for me.
The stained cable reel looks great in my opinion. It sits very nicely on the patio, and I celebrated on a warm evening with a ice cold beer. Not a bad view, eh?

The markings on the cable reel shows through nicely. This photo shows the reel while still wet, the stain is a little lighter than this!
On the inside of the building, my clay plaster mix has dried on the straw, and I have started plastering over the tyres now, before I combine the two in a final coat which should finish off the wall before I can paint it and call the inside finished!

The straw and tyre walls have very different finishes to them. I might break this up on the finished wall with a shelf or a dado rail.

Once the tyres are plastered the wall has a beautiful texture to it. The bottles will push into the wall to a smooth finish.
The finish of the tyres looks brilliant, in my opinion. I’m going to keep the undulating finish as part of a feature on the building, maybe separating the tyres and straw with a shelf, or other feature. We shall see how it looks when I get the paint on the walls and a flatter finish on our plaster.