plastered

THIS IS THE INOUE family, sakan-ya (or plasterers) of the finest order. After finishing the outside mortar of our house a while ago, they're back to do the interior walls in keisodo, which--as I think I've explained several times--is a plaster made of clay rich in volcanic ash and fossilized plankton. It been used for centuries as a fire-resistant clay for making stoves and burners. Recently it's been increasingly used as a wall plaster.

It's not an easy application, at least for an amateur. This is one of the son's tool box, where he keeps his entire collection of trowels of all shapes and sizes, and next to it is the palette with the small, narrow size trowel that he let me try. I was able to do an area of a couple square feet, but the plaster is gritty and digs into the edge of the tool. So he stepped back in and took over and the three family members finished about half of the house in one day. (They end up doing two layers, although when finished, it is only 2 or 3 millimeters thick. 

The keisodo absorbs moisture when it is humid and expells it when it's dry. It cuts down on noise, smells, mites, is fire-resistant, and is full of holes 4 nano meters wide that let the walls breath. I'm sure there's something bad about it, but I haven't found any reports yet. 

It has a very rough texture, almost like adobe, and it looks great against wood. It's bright white, but when the late winter sun hit it this afternoon as everyone was cleaning up, it turned the walls into yellow gold.