Natural plasters made of clay, lime, and other materials mixed with sand are beautiful building finishes. Fun to work with, low-impact, and allowing infinite creativity, they are high performance and provide proven, centuries-long durability.

Yet until now there's been no resource that has pulled together the best North American plaster recipes and how-to into one place. Essential Natural Plasters covers it all:

• Sourcing and selecting materials, including site-soils
• Clay, lime, and gypsum plasters as well as fibers and amendments
• Interior and exterior use and specialty plasters such as tadelakt for bathrooms
• Preparing substrates, from straw bales and cob to lath and sheetrock
• How to set-up a safe, efficient worksite
• Mixing, testing, tinting, and applying plasters and plaster repair
• Coveted recipes from leading plasterers in Ontario, Vermont, New Mexico, France, and New Zealand.

Richly illustrated and deeply researched, Essential Natural Plasters is the must-have resource for owner-builders and professionals alike.

Michael Henry plastered his way across Ontario for a decade. His research, attention to detail, and mad-scientist plaster experiments have made him a noted expert and teacher in the field. Michael lives in Peterborough, Ontario with his wife and two children. He shares his knowledge at thesustainablehome.net.

Tina Therrien started plastering in 1997 with Camel's Back Construction, Ontario's first straw bale company. A founding member of the Ontario Natural Building Coalition, she is co-author of More Straw Bale Building and operates Shelter By Hand, a timber framing company, in Low, Quebec, where she lives with her partner and daughter.