The never ending story (finishing the kitchen in my house).

[hutch--]

I have kept slugging away trying to get this back of the house finished, have walls up to 7 feet and just fitted an antique pair of French Doors to the new doorway. The wall either side of the antique doors are made with antique handmade sandstock bricks that look OK but are bastard hard to lay well. I have to re-glaze of of the window panes but have to look around for some old glass that is as droopy as the other three that are OK. The next job is to build the flat arches on either side of the top of the door, no big deal but a bit fussy to do correctly.

I have the brick course height correct on the left side but still have to correct the course height on the right side in the next 2 feet or so as i have to tooth the new wall into an existing one so it matches OK.

[dedndave]

nice doors - they will look great when you are done
laying brick or block is always a pain in the arse   :P

[hutch--]

I don't mind laying modern bricks, they are accurate and square edged but these old hand made ones are all different sizes with bends and tapers and they are hard work to get straight walls from.

The doors are OK for their age, a bit rough here and there but when I have enough done they will finish and paint up looking good. I made a concession to safety and taped up the broken pane of glass.

Big win i it plugs a door sized hole at the back of the house as its coming into winter here.

[baltoro]

hutch-
You have some great ambiance going there. You'll have to open a Bed and Breakfast for travelling Assembly Programmers.
I'll soon be ready to franchise my wild pool party concept, internationally,...it would fit perfectly. The cool thing about that is those two attractive women down the street will find the whole thing irrestisible.

[shankle]

There is one redeeming point in all this Hutch. You don't have a wiffie pushing you to get done
and therefor do a better job. The less they know about construction the more advice they have.
Or is mine unique? I like the brick. The different sizes will give it some panache.

[vanjast]

For the droopy glass, I'm sure there must be a 'glass-blower' close by. It's an ancient trade but they still exist, strangely enough.
If not buy a 5mm thick glass pane, and 'blow' it with a burner flame... gently that is

I reckon that aussie wine must bend your level a bit with those bricks... :bg
I always think that a right-angled (Stepford) house never has any character like a 'bent' house.. looks cool  :U

[hutch--]

Jack,

You will have to be careful, I would hate to hear about Donna as a widow after she bashed you for giving her cheek. I think most of the girls are the same, they don't have the background doing grubby technical work and just want to see it finished where some jobs just cannot be done that way. There is nothing glamorous about excavations and building foundations but it has to be done to build anything of any decent structural value. Thank God this is the last major structural job in the house, I have fixed the rest and it should last the millenium.

Van, you are right about the "bent" characteristic, this house was build circa 1874 and nothing in it is straight, its close but not that close. Just with this last construction the two side walls have a difference of about an inch and that is after fiddling it. The ground plan has multiple steps on either side as it was first surveyed about 50 years after it was built. I have saved a couple of panes of old glass from the front of the house and later I will try and cut one of them to fit but cutting old glass is risky and easy to make a mess of it. I may try a new trick, I have been using a small diamond saw on an angle grinder to cut bricks and it also cuts glass fine so it may be worth a try, I will practice on a piece of scrap.