Construction Blogging: Masonry, Porches, and Decks...Oh, My!

Yesterday I came home to the sight of our front porch being built.  I've loved watching the framing of the house, but it's been going on for so long now, I really needed something new to entertain me.  Sorry, framers, but I've moved on to masons.  It's not you; it's me. 

 

These masonry guys do not mess around.  Yesterday morning was the first day they were here, and they built all of the walls for the porch, the basement fireplace, and the chimney up to the main floor.  It's like an ant hill - these guys are just scurrying all the time.  And they work until it's too dark for them to see.  Hard-working guys, I'm telling you.  They wear me out.  And AGILE - they were taking wheelbarrows full of fire brick, block, or whatever across a 2x8 bridge from the tailgate of a truck to our door (approximately 15 feet long?), and doing it quickly.  And they are so incredibly polite.  Everything is "Yes, ma'am," or "Yes, sir," or "We just really appreciate the work."  I really like these guys. 

 



Porch walls

Chimney coming up from the basement to the main floor

Today when I got home, the framers were working on framing the roof for the front porch, and our contractor was working on getting the steel posts for our deck up.  The masons were working on the main level fireplace.

 



PMac gets some quality time with his excavator. Love his innovative way of raising deck posts.

These are the posts that will support the lake side of the deck.  They'll be covered with stone eventually.

Deck post connected to the footers PMac so artfully poured last week

Basement fireplace.  I think the block will be removed from it once the top is sufficiently set up.  Otherwise, fire-building will be difficult.  This was finished yesterday but is in today's pictures because the masons worked on it last night until it was literally too dark for me to get a picture (my phone battery was so low the camera flash wouldn't work).

Porch roof framing

The main level fireplace is taller than the basement fireplace, so I wanted a decorative pattern since you will see more of the fireplace walls.  I chose this basket weave pattern, and I am so in love with it.   

 

I had more battery tonight and could get this picture using my flash, but please note how dark it is outside (you can see out the window to the right of the fireplace).  The masons were literally pulling out of our driveway when I took this picture.

 

The guys are doing a fantastic job, and this fireplace may be my new favorite thing in the house.  This is compounded by the fact that our contractor told me they won't have to take part of my shoe closet for the chimney!  We originally thought that the chimney for the basement fireplace would have to run behind the upstairs chimney (long story, but we were originally considering Isokern fireplace kits, and that's apparently just how they work), but we decided to have built-from-scratch fireplaces instead, and they can run the chimneys side-by-side.  So I will have a bigger shoe closet than I thought, AND I get this awesomely beautiful fireplace.  So excited.  I can't wait to see what changes we have the rest of this week.