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Well, we're almost 30 feet off the ground here on some scaffolding, and it's a special day
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In 1987, I laid the first stone in the basement foundation of this house
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And I'm kind of embarrassed to say that it's taken me. 31 years to get this far but this particular stone you see here is quite significant it's the
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date stone I'm going to be setting this and I wanted to let you see that this is a special time
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I didn't think it was going to take this long as I said I'm kind of embarrassed it's taken me this
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long but in my defense I have financed a household of seven people we have five kids now all of which
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came along since I started this project and after this stone I probably have four or five more
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to go and then it will be done. The last thing to do when you setting stones here is to do the pointing and I gone with an old style here All old stonework a traditional structural stonework that I seen has mortar joints that cover the edges of the stone
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This tool is kind of interesting. It was given to me by an old stone mason. He was born in 1909
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His name was Ivan Bailey. I've written about him many times actually. And this is one of the two
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tools that he'd use to make this line profile here. So for most stones, it actually takes just as long to do the pointing as it does to set the stone
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So I'll put a little more mortar in there later. Now I'm just connecting these lines
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They don't look all that important close up, but far away it really changes the look of the stonework
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And now it's the time for the, this vertical one. Well, I'm about to lay the last stone
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I'm gonna take you up in the scaffolding and show you how that works. It's a little different than regular stones, but I've been, um, I've got the last load
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of mortar here and it in a special wheelbarrow This is a wheelbarrow I haven used for years because it getting kind of old and feeble but it is the wheelbarrow that Mary and I built the house with So the vast majority of mortar was mixed and dumped into this wheelbarrow
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Stones were moved. Before I had running water, when I was living in the shed, I used to take baths in that wheelbarrow on Saturday nights
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and I figured the last load of mortar should be transported by this wheelbarrow since it's been with us from the start
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So as you see, it's kind of messy. I'm going to rebuild it when we're all done, but I wanted it in its original condition for this particular operation
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So the mortar goes on this hoist. I've built here in my tools, and I'll see you up top
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Okay, so I've got the last stone here, and it's very different than any other stone I've laid
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in the house except for the other peaks. It's got a fit between the the soffet here. And of course
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once the stone is in place, I can't grab it and move it and set it. So I've drilled a hole here
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for this masonry screw, which gives me a handle. And I'm going to be tipping the stone back
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and moving it back like this laying in some mortar and then lifting the stone up and pulling it forward by the handle and setting it down on the mortar Gonna let that let that harden And then the very last thing to do is to come up in a couple of days from now and and take this screw out
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The hole won't be visible. It's too small. So I'm going to get to it
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Okay, now that's way more mortar than we need, but that's just what I want because it lets
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me wiggle it down here. Really awkward here because I don't have very much room at all. all
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Lucky for me, it's kind of hard to see what's going on down below
