Category: construction photos

Alas, the weather showed its effect this week, preventing the completion of the top bond beam by the end of July.  Instead, we see that about a quarter of the 36th course has been laid, leaving a very short day’s work to lay the remaining 90 or so blocks.  Here, in one picture, you can see pretty much the sum of what has been done (on the East wall) and what remains to be done (with unlaid blocks waiting in front of the North and South walls):

But for the curious and the technical, more images await:

Continue reading “Week 82 (Top Bond Beam Progress)”

The weather has been very uncooperative the past 10 days, but there have been enough good days to lay and mortar the 34th course, which means we’re now in the final lap of the masonry for the Music Room.  Here’s what it looks like from the driveway to the garage entry:

Continue reading “Week 81 (Course 34, Start of top bond beam)”

A lot of blocks went up this week, and the final features of the structure known as the Music Room are beginning to take shape.

We began with work on the outer wythe of the East wall, laying up the start of the upper pattern of accent blocks:

The outer wythe of the North wall may look like the straggler, but the many pallets of graded blocks tells the story: progress is going to be swift in the coming days:

Continue reading “Week 79 (Up to the 32nd course)”

In the past few weeks we’ve been making a lot of visible vertical progress, which has been exciting to watch.  This week began with a major grouting effort that consumed all of Monday and half of Tuesday.  And it was totally invisible.  I forgot to ask just how deep the grout had to be poured into the cores of the outer wythe, but let’s put it this way: it was at least one bucket of grout going into each core of the South Wall.  Here the buckets are being moved up to 18′ in preparation for the pouring:

Continue reading “Week 78 (South accent blocks)”

The focus of the past week has been on building up the inner wythe, which now reaches the 26th course all the way around, one course shy of the top of the 2nd diffusor pattern.  Here’s what it looks like now:

And here’s the side you won’t see:

Continue reading “Week 77 (26th course all around)”

Well, I didn’t see that coming…we lost two full days to weather, and yet the West saw the placement of the first few blocks of the 31st course.  Though the other main walls have a long way to go to catch up, seeing one wall attain this height makes for a real sense of progress.  But to get there, first the scaffolding had to go up.

Last week we saw the scaffolding lying in the grass:

Continue reading “Week 76 (First blocks of the 31st course)”

This week was a major consolidation week, bringing the South and West walls all the way up to the 24th course (16′ above slab level).  The East wall, which used to be our tallest wall, lags two courses below that, and our North Wall lags another two courses lower still.  Here was our condition at the start of the week, with the West wall growing up from the 16th course:

Continue reading “Week 75 (The 24th Course)”

This week we finished up the lower diffusion pattern on the South wall and then brought the North Wall even to that level.  Compared to the average progress of the last month, the blocks are now positively flying up into position.

From 10′ up on the scaffolding, here’s the pattern on the South wall:

In addition to finishing the pattern, we also grouted up to the 18th course, adding another 24 sticks of #5 rebar:

Continue reading “Week 74 (Lower North Diffusion Pattern)”

Because of the Memorial Day holiday, work did not begin this week until Tuesday.  And it started with a burst of progress: 112 blocks were laid on Tuesday, dramatically changing the view as one approaches the site:

Continue reading “Week 73 (Lower South Diffusion Pattern)”

This week features the most complex masonry task thus far in the project: the integration of the massive steel beam into the South wall so that when it’s finished, you’ll never know it was even there.

But you might be interested to know how this all came to be…

Continue reading “Week 72 (Integrated Steel Beam)”