Ch.3: Reverting decay – but how?

Fig.1: Mid to 19th century house from Bihor, Romania in pre-collapse. Please excuse the author's terrible taken-from-the-car type of photography skills.

The image of traditional houses in various stages of collapse is, to me, always sad, but rarely truly ugly. Perhaps there is something about the recyclability of most of it, perhaps the faint traces such constructions leave – at least in comparison with modern concrete constructions, the jagged, rusty ruins of which plague the eye about as often as plastic litter.

Fig.2: Similar house, which the author remembers seeing with a roof over it about a decade ago. With the wall toward the street partly collapsed, a traditional bed was visible; in the background, a mostly-free standing doorframe and a precariously still existing wardrobe.

Perhaps there is an inviting, peaceful, non-threatening aura to a handful of crumbling mudbrick and woodbeam walls, and the archaeologist within can already see the stratigraphy of it all, the beautiful dark yellow of disintegrated clay bricks, the traces of ash mixed with a compacted clay surface – oh, most definitely a kitchen at some point – or who knows what else.

The main point in this project of here, though, is to avoid any such romantic images of decrepitude and collapse; that is, to stop the decay which has overcome the house, and revert it.

Knowing the existing issues and their level of priority, the solutions come along – they only need to be in harmony with the existing materials and appropriate technique-wise.

Since the roof has already been fixed, the next objectives would be the bed and foundation beams. Here, the stones have to be placed back in stable position and mortared together; the broken beam would be replaced, and the dislodged one would be pushed back into its proper position, and anchored. 

In order to protect the freshly re-mortared stone platform from water damage, gutters for rain-water are to be installed: the slight settling in place of the roof during and following the work on the stone bed and beams will not be enough to damage the gutters. Of course, their role is both to prevent rainwater from flowing onto the wall in case of high winds, but also to have all such water flow into the road-side ditch of the street, rather than accumulating by the base of the walls.

When these larger elements are dealt with, the detail work can finally begin!

One first thing to come back will be the chimney – for both stoves of the house (and who knows, if the attic is to become habitable...).

Further on, there is one portion that we’ve barely mentioned at all – the floors.

Like many such houses, it has floors that are only compacted clay. Quite obviously, compacted clay is no match for rodents, and while they may stay away from a permanently inhabited home, leaving such a house empty even for a couple of weeks may seem simply too inviting.

In order to adapt this issue – together with that of cleanliness – both to more contemporary sensibilities and to a wish for the same harmony of materials and techniques within the house, books such as that of Hulsemann or the Romanian Order of Architects’ guides for local rural architectural specifics recommend two main options: plain wooden floorings or un-mortared brick.

Given that both materials are available, let us suppose that the kitchen and pantry will be given a plain brick flooring, whilst the living room will have wood flooring.

In both cases, the first step would be lowering the level of the floor by some 0.15m and creating a compact, level surface. 

For the bricks, a compact layer of fine, dry clay or sand would be laid over, over which the bricks would simply be arranged in any pattern, without space in between them.

Fig.3: Different patterns for brick floors and one example (from Hulsemann 2014).

The wooden floors require small, parallel base-beams distanced at 0.5-0.8m, over which soft wood planks, such as fir, are placed in various manners.

Fig.4: Basic structure for traditional wooden floors (from Hulsemann 2014).

Reworking the plastering on the walls, whether in or out, is an easy and messy procedure.

After removing all clay plastering that is no longer adhering to the wooden walls (as well as, preferably, the older degraded layers of whitewash, which often hinder the adherence of the new layers), a new base plaster is made. This is a combination of clay, water and straw. After application, this plaster cracks in the drying process; a second, finer plaster is then applied over, which replaces straw with horse dung – the small, dense vegetal fibres of which do not let the surface crack. Finally, the whitewash is applied, in blue on the outside, and white on ornaments and the inside. 

Fig.5: Approximation of the colours and ornamentation currently existing and the likely colours and ornamentation in the early 20th century (and the likely end result of the restoration).

And that would be much of it all!

Of course, there are many details or smaller jobs that I’ve glossed over: removing the doors and windows for cleaning, repairing and repainting, changing cracked glass panes, plastering the entire back wall of the house and replacing lost portions of the attic tympanum, installing the stoves, having the electrical system checked and, why not, building a nature friendly latrine and cleaning the well.

Just as well, larger projects for later summers (may we finish these in 2021!) could be mentioned, such as turning the attic into actual living space.

However, with this blog I believe I’ve given a rough but balanced overview of the first things that one must to do save such a fragment of rural built heritage. 

If anyone wants access to my pdf library of books on restoring rural houses or wants to know how work is going and if the cottage is happy yet, give me a shout☺

Bogdan Sorinca

Bibliography

Jan Hulsemann. Casa țărănească săsească din Transilvania. Ghid pentru restaurarea caselor vechi. Translated by Eugen Vaida& Mihai Lazar. Simetria: Sibiu. 2014.