Wait! There Can Be Wood In a Stone Wall?
Yes, there can be wood in a stone wall. Go figure.
We’re turning our 250-year-old carriage house with stone walls into a gym. The stone needs to be repointed (outer layer of lime mortar removed and replaced) and you might be surprised at how much woodwork has been required in the course of this project.
Nothing is ever simple with old houses. I should put that saying on a T-shirt. Might make enough to buy myself a cup of coffee.
Where are you likely to find wood in a stone wall?
Nothing would surprise me (also a great t-shirt slogan) but we’ve found wood most commonly in four different places in our stone walls.
First, there is often wood around window and door openings.
Doors are often completely framed out with wood because you need someplace to hang the door.
Windows openings usually have some wood, again, because there needs to be a way to secure the window into the stone wall. I’ve seen 2×2 or 2×4 pieces of wood embedded diagonally into a stone wall to give the window frame something to attach to. You can see an example of this in the below photo.
You may also see wood embedded in the wall below a window. The mortar holds the wood securely in place and allows a windowsill to be attached to it.
Yes, there’s a hole beneath the window. It lets a nice breeze in. Mice too. *sigh* We’ll fix it.
The header or frame above the doors and windows can be comprised of multiple pieces of wood or even beams, depending on how deep the opening is. These are usually embedded into the stone and mortar.
In the below photo, you can see an example of this. However, in this case, you’re looking at a brand new 2×6 that we inserted into the wall to replace a rotten board of approximately the same size. You’ll see that we had to remove a couple of rocks to get the old board out and the new one in. They come out a lot easier than they go in.
Second, we’ve found wood for mantels above a stone fireplace.
In the case of the mantel in our Carriage House, the wood is a giant beam that also acts as a ledger board to support the stone above it.
Once we strip the paint off of it, it will look even more impressive.
Third, you might see small pieces of wood embedded randomly in stone walls.
Or is it really random? There’s usually some method to the madness, even if it doesn’t make sense to you.
These pieces of wood embedded in a wall might be in a spot where someone knew they’d want to hang something. It’s easier to nail into wood than into stone or mortar. Ask me how I know.
The wood embedded in this wall is a small square piece. It is directly to the left of the window rail (the horizontal part in the middle of the window).
Fourth, there will likely be wood at the top of a stone wall.
If you find wood at the top of a stone wall, it is there because something is being built on top of that wall.
In the case of a stone basement foundation, the wood you’ll find is a big beam that is the modern equivalent of a sill plate. The entire house is attached to that sill plate. Don’t freak out if the beam is just sitting there on the wall. It’s not Humpty Dumpty about ready to fall. The weight of the house and gravity are keeping it in place. I can’t emphasize enough how much you do NOT want that beam/sill plate to rot. That’s bad news.
You also might find floor joists for the floor above sitting on top of a stone wall. Same thing for roof trusses.
Well, that was a really, really long-winded way of answering the question no one asked about if and why there is wood in a stone wall.
This info might come in handy for approximately one percent of you lucky ducks who are also restoring a money pit home with stone walls.
Are you surprised by how much wood is in a stone wall? Are you just as amazed as I am about how talented builders were hundreds and even thousands of years ago? Let me know. Please leave a comment on this blog post, email us here, or reach out via Instagram or Facebook.
Happy DIYing!
Thanks for being here today. I love hanging out with you. Feel free to stay a while. Here are some other blog posts you might enjoy.
What We Didn’t Anticipate When Repointing Our Stone Walls
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