The Chimney Memorial Walkway--Roughing In Continues
I have to-day finished harvesting the whole bricks which came from our chimney. I broke a few, but got most of them into the walkway. I continued by finding and cleaning bricks from previous chimney demolitions in Vancouver and Portland.
I believe half of the bricks I tried to clean broke in two. Those went into the brick scrap heap.
The other half, however, I did clean up well enough to put into the path (some with cement on the bottom or sides), not daring to try too hard to clean the bricks perfectly for fear of breaking them.
After about three hours of this my wrists weakened from holding the sledge hammer and I became hungry and thirsty, so I wound down slowly-- picking brick and mortar pieces out of the medium bark, picking weeds, picking river rock from beside the brick patio, moving named bricks to the brick patio, picking out nails and screws from various places and depositing them in the metal can.
I am slowly trying to improve how everything looks in the side yard even while I am focussed on the roughing in of the walkway.
The walkway is not perfect: I just want to use all the bricks I have to cover the area (prevent weeds). By the time I am finished I should have enough money to buy paver base and redo the entire area. Before I do that, though, I want to do what I can without spending money.
One of the bricks I found buried last week I have never seen before: marked Clayburn. Turns out this is a brick from a plant in British Columbia close to the border with the USA.
Other named bricks I found were partials for A.P. Green and other brick companies I already have represented in the collection. One was fairly complete: American.
To-morrow I will continue cleaning and probably breaking bricks from the south side front area until I have no more full bricks.
Then--plan to move some things in the basement and come out with my diamond blade circular saw, a dust mask and eye protector, hammer and chisel. I have a number of complete bricks embedded with other bricks. I will cut the mortar and try to rescue those. Then: half bricks. I will take the broken bricks larger than a half brick and cut them into half bricks. Then, for every two half-bricks, I will replace a full brick already in the walkway, the move the full brick to the end.
I don't know how long this tedious process will take, but I aim to use as many bricks as I can from the current supply and leave behind fairly useless rubble. Of course, I will use the rubble when I create my dry well in the back yard. In fact, moving on to the dry well will be motivated by finding a place for the rubble just as much as by resolving our drainage problems!
I believe half of the bricks I tried to clean broke in two. Those went into the brick scrap heap.
The other half, however, I did clean up well enough to put into the path (some with cement on the bottom or sides), not daring to try too hard to clean the bricks perfectly for fear of breaking them.
After about three hours of this my wrists weakened from holding the sledge hammer and I became hungry and thirsty, so I wound down slowly-- picking brick and mortar pieces out of the medium bark, picking weeds, picking river rock from beside the brick patio, moving named bricks to the brick patio, picking out nails and screws from various places and depositing them in the metal can.
I am slowly trying to improve how everything looks in the side yard even while I am focussed on the roughing in of the walkway.
The walkway is not perfect: I just want to use all the bricks I have to cover the area (prevent weeds). By the time I am finished I should have enough money to buy paver base and redo the entire area. Before I do that, though, I want to do what I can without spending money.
One of the bricks I found buried last week I have never seen before: marked Clayburn. Turns out this is a brick from a plant in British Columbia close to the border with the USA.
Other named bricks I found were partials for A.P. Green and other brick companies I already have represented in the collection. One was fairly complete: American.
To-morrow I will continue cleaning and probably breaking bricks from the south side front area until I have no more full bricks.
Then--plan to move some things in the basement and come out with my diamond blade circular saw, a dust mask and eye protector, hammer and chisel. I have a number of complete bricks embedded with other bricks. I will cut the mortar and try to rescue those. Then: half bricks. I will take the broken bricks larger than a half brick and cut them into half bricks. Then, for every two half-bricks, I will replace a full brick already in the walkway, the move the full brick to the end.
I don't know how long this tedious process will take, but I aim to use as many bricks as I can from the current supply and leave behind fairly useless rubble. Of course, I will use the rubble when I create my dry well in the back yard. In fact, moving on to the dry well will be motivated by finding a place for the rubble just as much as by resolving our drainage problems!