Happy List: #404
Hi! Welcome to this week’s Happy List. I’m delighted you’ve joined me here today. This week on the blog, I shared the demolition of the second fieldstone wall we are rebuilding. The middle of a project is when I start to question why we start these things. But I remembered my why on Wednesday when I shared how the new fieldstone stairs turned out. The consensus on those is that they are better than we all imagined. As always, thank you for being here. I hope the Happy List is a bright spot in your day and leaves you feeling inspired and encouraged! Part of the fun for me is…
Curved Fieldstone Wall: Part 7, The Stairs
Welcome back to our Curved Fieldstone Wall Series, where we attempt to rebuild the fieldstone walls in our front yard using historical masonry techniques. Today we are talking about the stairs between the two wall sections. The first wall section is already complete. The stairs were not a part of the original plan. We intended to leave them alone because we were going to exercise restraint, like the reasonable DIYers that we are. Hahahahahaha. The original stairs connecting the driveway to our sidewalk were concrete, which makes sense. The sidewalk and the stairs match. The stairs were a little wonky in size, and one looked newer than the other, but…
Curved Fieldstone Wall: Part 6, Demo Section 2
I’m back with part 6 of our Curved Fieldstone Wall Series. This time we’re discussing demo of the second wall section we’re working on. Here’s the thing about our DIY projects. They never go according to plan. Why do we bother planning? I don’t rightly know. We expected the demolition of the second wall section to go as quickly as the first section. While the second wall section is twice as long as the first, it was built the same way. In addition, a quarter of it had already demoed itself for us. THAT’S the kind of effort we like to see from inanimate objects. I guess the rest of…
Happy List: #403
Hello, hello! Welcome to this week’s Happy List. I’m thrilled you are here. This week on the blog, I shared the reveal of the newly exposed stone on our porch wall. That was a fun discovery. I also shared the pared-down gallery wall in our living room. Decorating and redecorating is fun, isn’t it? At a minimum, it’s easier than building a stone wall. Haha! As always, thank you for being here. I hope the Happy List is a bright spot in your day and leaves you feeling inspired and encouraged! Part of the fun for me is connecting with you. If you want to reach out, please comment on…
Pared-Down Living Room Gallery Wall
The only constant in life is change, and this applies to our living room gallery wall, too. I had spent a few years creating a genuinely collected-over-time gallery wall in our living room. It had a nature theme because that’s the kind of art that makes my soul exhale. I love this nature-themed gallery wall. I was also ready for a change. Two seemingly contradictory things can be true at the same time. I didn’t want a drastic change, just something a bit simpler and more refined to feast my eyes on. My pared-down living room gallery wall needed to stick with the nature theme, though, because I haven’t changed…
Curved Fieldstone Wall: Part 5, Porch Wall
We’ve been working on rebuilding a curved fieldstone wall in front of our house. Part of that wall connects to our front porch, and a little oopsie occurred to the porch wall while doing demo. We didn’t intend to touch the porch while doing this curved fieldstone wall project. We know when our plates are full. Unfortunately for us, the unintended consequence of jackhammering three inches away from the porch was that the vibrations traveled, and we cracked a section of the skim coat covering the porch foundation. That was fine. We could probably fix it. Then, much to our horror, the cracked portion of skim coat FELL OFF the…
Happy List: #402
Hello! We’re closing out August on today’s Happy List. This season has felt like it has flown by for us. How about you? This week on the blog was all about the stone wall we are building. I hope you aren’t sick of it yet because this is our life now, and I write about what’s happening in our lives. On Monday, I shared the progress we made on the first section of wall. On Wednesday, I shared the incomplete reveal of that wall. I only say incomplete because the area is surrounded by stone debris as we continue to work on the next wall section. As always, thank you…
Curved Fieldstone Wall: Part 4, REVEAL Section 1
It’s reveal day for section 1 of our curved fieldstone wall! Can I get a WOO to the HOO? I know some of you made a woohoo sound in your head, so thank you for that! We are fortunate to live on a property that is framed by low fieldstone walls. 250 years ago, our property was much larger than it is now and would have been farmed. We assume the stone walls or fences were built as a practical way of dealing with all of the stones that were pulled out of the soil to make it arable. Fast forward to the present, and there are multiple sections of…
Curved Fieldstone Wall: Part 3, Progress Section 1
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…
Happy List: #401
Hello, hello! Welcome to this week’s Happy List. I am absolutely delighted to see you here. This week on the blog I shared the second installment in our fieldstone wall series. How many installments will there be? I have no idea. I wish I could tell you though because that would mean we were close to being done. Ha! I also shared some of my favorite fall crafts. I know, I know. It’s August. But the early bird gets the pumpkin spice. As always, thank you for being here. I hope the Happy List is a bright spot in your day and leaves you feeling inspired and encouraged! Part of…
