TIL my old adobe wall has exactly 47 layers of plaster on it

I was fixing a crack in my living room wall over in the North Valley and decided to see how deep it went. After chipping away for what felt like forever, I started counting the different colored plaster layers. I hit 47 distinct coats before I got back to the original adobe brick. My house is over a hundred years old, so I guess every owner just slapped on a new layer instead of stripping the old stuff. Has anyone else in town found something this wild when doing a simple repair?

3 comments

3 Comments

alex_hall912mo agoMost Upvoted

That's a lot of layers, but honestly, it's just how old adobe houses are built up. Not really a big deal for a place that old.

nancy8242mo ago

Wow, that's a perfect example of how we just keep adding new stuff on top of the old... I see it everywhere, like how my phone has layers of old apps I never delete, or my closet is just new clothes piled on top of clothes I never wear. It's easier to cover something up than to deal with the mess underneath.

sandragonzalez12d ago

Oh come on, I REALLY have to push back on that! I think piling new coats of mud on old adobe walls is WAY different than me having twelve unused apps from 2016 on my phone. When people build up those layers in a house, it's actually intentional. They're MAINTAINING something, not just hiding their old junk. My phone's storage is a graveyard of failed fitness apps and photo editors I used once. That's just laziness, not some ancient building technique. There's a BIG difference between maintaining a structure and letting your clutter pile up until you can't see the floor anymore.