Rendering over old pointing

[londoneye]

I have finished pointing the outside of our large barn, but inside, downstairs, we just want to render the walls (can't face the pointing again just yet!).   A lot of the old pointing is cracked etc, and of course some is missing.   We intend to render with a chalk / sand mix.

Is it a really bad idea to render over this, after brushing it down, or should the old pointing (or to a certain depth anyway) be removed before rendering commences?    Could we (should we) seal the wall with something before rendering?  I hope this makes sense.

[Alex H]

In our renovation 'project' the previous owners has painted the kitchen a nice shade of blue (gloss) over the stone walls

http://www.alenda.freeserve.co.uk/house_first_4.html

We decided that this had to come off as we would like the traditional pointed stone look. However after removing a lot of the surface we could see the stones underneath were in not particularly nice to look at and pointing made not a lot of differance. There were just too many small stones in there

http://www.alenda.freeserve.co.uk/house6_8.html

So we have now pointed the stones up to a reasonably flat finish using the usual chaux mix and then limewashed the whole surface giving us this

http://www.alenda.freeserve.co.uk/house11_19.html

Do not try to seal the wall with anything, stone walls are meant to breath

Just remove the damged and loose pointing and a bit of the surface before going over it. We took off too much the first time and it takes an awful long time to put back[:)]

[londoneye]

Thanks - looks good; although I think I preferred the blue just a tiny bit (!) OMG where did they get that colour from, and who on earth would choose it in a dark house.

Anyway, former owners dodgy taste aside, bit of a daft question, but what did you use to limewash the walls after please?

[Alex H]

chaux and water - mixed to consistency of 'single cream' (as taught to us on the course at Ty-Mawr Lime [:)])