Progress feels good, and we have made significant progress on building Section One of our curved fieldstone wall. If you missed Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, those are a rockin’ good time. Here’s the section of wall that we are rebuilding. With all of the rocks out, that area looked kind of weird. Scratch that. There was no “kind of.” It looked flat out weird. Best we get to remedying that. I started by repointing a section of the front porch foundation that we exposed during the wall demolition. Not only does this foundation need repointing with lime mortar, but this way I’ll be able to secure…

In case you missed Part 1, we are building a curved fieldstone wall. Or, perhaps, it is more accurate to say we are rebuilding a curved fieldstone wall. Today’s post is all about demoing the first section we are rebuilding. This section of wall connects to the front porch and serves as a retaining wall for a flowerbed. Demo is supposed to be the easy part of any project, right? Hahahahahaha. Easy might not apply to concrete. Or maybe easy just doesn’t apply to anything we do. Once again, the hammer drill with a chisel attachment was our MVP for taking down a stone wall, but we did use a hammer…

Drumroll, please! Our next masonry project will be to rebuild a curved fieldstone wall in our front yard. Who’s excited for this one? *raises my own hand* I am excited for this project mainly because this fieldstone wall has become a major curb appeal issue, and not in a good way. Remember the children’s rhyme about Humpty Dumpty? Now imagine Humpty Dumpty sitting on the wall, and the reason he fell off was because the wall collapsed under him. That’s the sketchy situation with the wall in front of our house. Most of it is a low, curved fieldstone wall that is only a couple of feet high. There is,…

Here’s the “tada” moment you’ve been waiting for, the reveal of our fieldstone stairs. If you’re just joining us, you can catch up on Part 1 and Part 2 of this series. It’s a rockin’ good time. The short story is we thought we’d see how hard it would be to build stairs out of natural fieldstone. This means using stones dug out of our backyard and used in their natural state. No clean edges. No uniform sizes. No idea how it will look when you’re done. Well, we had a vague idea. But it turned out even better than we imagined and, believe it or not, it wasn’t the…

Welcome back! We are building fieldstone stairs. This is a DIY project we’ve never attempted before and may never attempt again. We have just enough confidence, competence, and delusions to approach new projects with an “everything is figure-out-able” attitude. Today I’m going to overshare our process for building fieldstone stairs. Please note when I say fieldstone I mean actual stone taken out of the ground (my backyard) and used in its natural form. This is not stone purchased on a pallet from the stone quarry that has even, predictable dimensions. That would make this project infinitely easier – a concept with which we are wholly unfamiliar. Let’s get into the…

It’s the big TADA or, as most refer to it, Reveal Day for our stone Carriage House gym! We have been working on this phase of the Carriage House gym expansion for four months! I have documented almost fifty individual work sessions on social media. Truthfully, it was more than that, but I spared you a bit of the tedium. I have no good or bad value to place on the amount of time this project has taken. It is what it is when you’re DIYing your way through your evenings and weekends. I can’t tell you what tv series is good to watch, but I can tell you my…

We’ve discussed floors, walls, and now it’s time to discuss the Carriage House gym ceiling. You wouldn’t think a ceiling would be very interesting, but the Carriage House has a gorgeous ceiling. Trust me when I say, when you are laying on your back staring straight up while trying to bench press your body weight and the only thing you have to distract you from the strain of your questionable choices is the ceiling above you, you’ll be glad you took the time to make it look gorgeous. When I say gorgeous, I mean that in a rustic sort of way that’s appropriate for this building’s age and style. We’re…

I’m too excited to bury the lead. We hid a time capsule in our stone Carriage House! *In my best Oprah voice, “You get a time capsule, and YOU get a time capsule, but only if you find it!* It is not a secret that I am unabashedly on the hunt for buried treasure on our 250-year-old property. Surely, surely, there must be some cash, gold coins, or Prohibition-era liquor hidden somewhere, right? Unless someone already found it. Hmmm…nope! I refuse to believe it. Hope springs eternal around here. Plus, my treasure hunt is just good, silly fun. Renovating and restoring a property as old as ours is no easy…

The adventure continues on our stone Carriage House gym project. Today, we’re talking about the concrete floor problem. Or shall we call it an opportunity? Hmm. I’m not feeling that generous yet. It really was an issue. The worst part is we should have seen it coming. Here’s how we got in this predicament. We took down a non load-bearing stone wall in a very old building. I’m not casually or disrespectfully throwing out the old adjective. This building was originally a garage for a horse-drawn carriage and dates back to the late 1700s. Old is a compliment. We use it for a home gym now. I’m sure our forefathers…