This week I was able to finish mortaring the bricks on the cellar doors. This now lets Paul begin building the new cellar doors. He’s already chosen the trim and hardware and begun work on them. I wish I could give you a snapshot but not just yet. Trust me though, they will be beautiful and a far cry above what was there before. Paul’s work is so clean and precise.

For those following along at home, as you may recall, where we last left our cellar door wall: Once I had removed all of the loose mortar, there essentially was none anymore. It had all deteriorated and as you can see, the bricks fell out like stacked dominoes.

After the mortar crumbled, I found that some of the bricks themselves had deteriorated and when the mortar was gone, they crumbled as well. Luckily we had plenty of bricks that were originally strewn all over the perimeter of the house, simply lying around. I’d been stacking them up in sizes and colors for just such a usage. So after a few minutes of searching our “inventory,” I was able to find the right sizes and colors for the cellar wall, but then my new trick to learn this week was how to get the right size and length. This involved chiseling the bricks in such a way as to make them break apart exactly where I needed so they would fit the space.

And tada! It’s not my best work but the wall itself is leaning a bit and we would have had to dig down about 6 feet, tear out the other bricks that were secure and rebuild the whole wall to fix the slight lean your eyes may detect. We decided, a little tilt actually looks good. lol.

You may see a bit of paint on the right side of the image here. This week, while I was letting the mortar dry on the bricks here, I was able to prime and paint the foundation on the left side of the house. Yes my friends, we have a corner!