How a mason from Es Mercadal spent a winter teaching us that plaster is a slow material.
Every wall in Casa Vela was finished with lime, mixed on site and applied in three thin coats. Each coat needs about two weeks to take. That is why the restoration took fourteen months rather than six.
Tomeu, the mason, worked without a level. He ran his palm across the surface and told us where it was off. He was right almost every time, and when he was wrong, the difference was smaller than a coin.
Lime breathes. It takes moisture from the air in the evening and gives it back during the day, which is why the rooms smell of rain in October and never of paint. It also marks easily and heals just as easily, with a little water and a cloth.
We kept the marks that came with the house: a blue line from a boat hull leaning against the wall in 1962, a child’s handprint in the stair. Everything else was made new, by hand, slowly.
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Island
Three roads north
Joan drew the maps that we leave in every room. Here is how he chose the routes.