"You Rock!!"

At least that's what someone passing by told me today as I was happily setting stones! I finally got the portion of the wall that faces the yard pretty well wrapped up. I might do some additional tuck-pointing to this area again later, but overall am pretty satisfied with how things are turning out.

Now that I have the side facing the yard done, I can focus on the side of the wall facing the street. Just a few more stones to set! I ran out of mortar and had to call it a day.

My back is ready for this project to be done. It doesn't think we should be mixing 180 lbs. of mortar. I couldn't agree more!

So much tuck-pointing to do in other parts of the wall! This should keep me busy all summer! Imagining how much money I am saving by doing it myself is so satisfying!

Today I am a Mason

Our home's property sits on a corner of two streets that join at a "T" intersection. The yard is sunken and a lovely stone wall runs adjacent to one of the streets. Earlier this week a vehicle made contact with the wall and damaged it.

This part of the wall has been reduced to crumbles. (shot from the street looking down into the yard)

It may be hard to tell in this shot, but the damaged portion of the wall is now slightly bulging near the rust-colored horizontal and the white triangle stones. (shot from the yard looking toward the adjacent street)

I think this might be a project I can handle... first—clean the area and stones of old mortar.

I moved a small chunk of old mortar and the whole section collapsed! Thankfully the stones missed my feet when they fell!

Thankfully I took pics before it collapsed. Hopefully that will help me figure out where all of the pieces go when I go to reassemble it!

Another section of the wall has some loose stones too. I decided to start down there so I could get my bearings and work out the technique before tackling the larger problem.

A car hit the corner of this wall a couple of years ago and loosened up some stones at the end.

Another "before" shot.

 And... VOILA!  This is what 60 lbs. of mortar looks like (my back is not happy about this project)!

Only the top layer of stones has been reset here.

Not too bad for my first time at masonry! I'm feeling pretty good about the process and am looking forward to getting the other section of the wall started.

The rocks behind the iris are for decoration and not part of my construction project.

Check back in a couple of days to see my progress!

Hot Mess Tuesday

As always, I have my fingers in a few simultaneous messes today. Let me show you what I'm up to!

First we'll start with the stairs. I've continued to scrape them and get the skirting cleaned up as well. My husband has been pretty good about the destruction and messes I've been making lately. Wonder how he'll handle seeing the stairway with missing spindles? It's a necessary evil—I need to scrape the underside of the railing before I can put my new spindles in.

And speaking of spindles, I have another finish coat of paint to put on them. Here they are with one coat of primer and one coat of finish. Looking good!

I sat on the floor of my screened porch and painted the spindles while my little one sat on the other side of the door jabbering and making this hot mess. And to think she told me she was making SOUP! lol...

Here is a candlestick lamp that I am refinishing today as well. I am stoopid* and didn't make a before picture. It was cream with a crackle finish. The brown will fit my decor much better. Maybe I'll be bright enough to take an after shot when it's done...

*intentional misspelling to further illustrate my point

And lastly, this final hot mess was the inspiration for today's blog title. Let me explain...


You may recall that when I stripped the wallpaper off the other day, I had some wall damage that needed repaired prior to painting. In repairing the wall, the wall's texture was smoothed. I like my house's rough walls! I didn't want to go to the trouble of getting paint and adding sand, so I thought I'd just get a can of wall/ceiling texture and dial down the spray to a fine mist. If needed, I'll sand the texture down a bit prior to painting.

Here's a shot of what I was able to get done before my can of texture malfunctioned after just a couple of squirts:

Definitely one hot mess! At least, I'm assuming this mess is a malfunction? Anyone??

Now where's my receipt?! This thing's going back! Grr...