Saturday, August 6, 2011

Brick Wall!

You saw the Big Red Brick Truck and the bricks all stacked up...here is what happened next:
We covered the wall dividing the two sections of the house - sleeping side and awake side.  The sleeping side is behind the wall.
Only one little piece in the center to measure and cut and the generator won't start!  Not to worry.  Homes were built without much technology for years and years, so we went back to some earlier "technology".
My little husband's muscles and a tiny sharp hand saw!

Mission accomplished.
Now, behind this lovely wall is what I have found to be my only unfavorite part of home building so far.  And Debbie, I don't know why they make it all pretty and pink and girly, because it really is not nice at all!  I even tried humming the Pink Panther song while I was cutting and wrestling this nasty stuff...did NOT work!  It is just plain ICK.


Almost looks soft and yummy...unless you already know it up close and personal!

So, anyway, I survived the insulation, and the wall was ready for the brick layers in the morning.
I made a little practice wall just to see what it was going to look like...and I liked.




And here it is finished by the pros.  YES!  Our first finished wall.  Happy.

                                                                         Close up. 
They are red bricks with this white "stuff" on them so that they look aged to me.
I think I will be a brick layer when I grow up...$1.00 per brick! Uh huh.  We have 5600 bricks stacked out there.  We will be learning how to do this ourselves for the outside of the house.
These guys were good...in and done and out in 8 hours...but for the cost, I think I can take a few days to do the rest with my friends who work for $5.00 Little Ceaser's pizza!  Live and learn. 

And this is why I carry an epi pen when I travel out of the country.  Something I didn't even see stung me while I was mowing yesterday morning...this is more than 24 hours later...itchy and BIG.





9 comments:

K said...

You are as bad as I am. Six posts' worth of subject matter in one post. 1) I thought the little hole was actually some kind of cool, quirky little window thing, and I was already thinking what stained glass I'd put in it. 2) I love that nobody sat around waiting for the tech to do the job. 3) I love sleeping half and awake half 4) You're REALLY GOING TO LEARN HOW TO DO IT???? Cool. I want to learn to do tile, too. 5). YOUR HANDS!! ACK. Why can't plants insects and animals just mind their own business and not sting, bite or scratch? We woke up just after midnight night before last, turned on the light in the bathroom and found over 40 mosquitos in the tiny bathroom - all over walls, ceiling and mirror. We spent an hour hunting them down, one by one. That night, G finally figured out that they had been breeding in the water-filled swamp cooler the whole time we'd been gone, and then the week it had been so humid - so we hadn't turned the thing on. Next day, he climbed up there and opened the thing and was hit in the face by a cloud of home-bred biting insects. Adam probably blamed this on Eve, but it was actually just fate - how else would we have gotten a chance to get a life and live it?

W-S Wanderings said...

Oh, the pink stuff. Uck. There really isn't much to love about it, aside from that frivolous insulation value. I remember gazing at it the pink fluffiness as a child (my father was a contractor) and just wanting to dive into it, thinking it looked SO comfortable and fun, and that surely my father was a madman to think it was made of molten glass.

The brick wall is LOVELY. I agree with you that it looks more aged with the white stuff. And, while I'm not strong with math, I can see that the $5.00 pizza is going to be far friendlier to the budget than the $1.00 per brick option. Wow!

And your hands! Do they hurt? It hurts to LOOK at them. That's crazy. I hope this sort of madness doesn't happen to you often.

Now, I'm thinkin' that K's *comments* pack six posts' worth of material into one comment.

W-S Wanderings said...

Ya know what? I think I need to start proof-reading my comments before I hit the Post Comment button - that's what.

Donna said...

Ha. I know. I can't stop the post. I still have pictures!
1. I haven't decided where I want some stained glass yet, but I do want some. 2. When technology fails, which it always does, which is why I don't even like it most of the time, I always have "Well, what about doing it this way?" ideas until my little husband finally says OK. :-) 3. The third half of the house will be my upstairs studio! 4. We did some of the coolest tiling in NM house. We used sample tiles that the store was going to throw away and made a little "rug" in the entry and a big patchwork on the kitchen floor. My little husband cut and made tile medalions that he used for trade to get the rest of the tile for the house. Very pretty and geometric. So, really, brick? Piece of cake! I hope.
5. Yeah. My hand is interesting.
6. We had a swamp cooler in NM, but we never used it for breeding skeeters. Ouch. That high pitched zooming in sound they make has me diving for cover everytime I hear it....can't imagine the mighty hunters in the bathroom scene...and poor G and the cloud of doom! So glad he didn't fall off of the roof.

Donna said...

WSW, the hand only hurts when I try to use it! Not very badly, though.
And just so you know, it is driving me crazy to try and find what is wrong with your post that you would have fixed if you had proof read...
The pink stuff is so unfriendly that we found a store that sells and installs for just about the same price that the "big" store sells it for...hallelujah!

K said...

I even forgot to remark on the pink stuff. I had the same experience Wabi did - thinking it looked so soft and wonderful. I remember my dad calling it "angel hair" or something and warning me not to touch it. Which, of course, I did. And itched fiercely for my trouble. Bumble bees like to build nests in it, too, by the way. And I couldn't find a dang thing wrong with Wabi's bit. Anyway, she's too funny and wonderful to allow you to even notice any such thing.

Donna said...

Our pink stuff is all covered up and we threw away all the left over bits so no bumble bee nesting!
Glad you couldn't find anything wrong either! I can rest now. teehee.

W-S Wanderings said...

"I remember gazing at it the pink fluffiness as a child..." The "it", I forgot to omit it when I changed the wording. And NOW I'm fretting because I've somehow shrunk my screen and I can't see what I'm typing. So THIS time I have an excuse. But I've become a bit sloppy lately, and my words are laced with misspellings, typos, and, most unforgiveable of all, misplaced apostrophes. (Ack! I really need to SEE what I'm typing!)

We actually tried to outwit the pink stuff and bought GREEN stuff instead for our renovations. And if I recall correctly, it is just as mean=spirited as its pink cousin.

Donna said...

WSW, are you a professional writer like our friend, K? I am going to start to have a complex about my over use of those three little dotty things...but they are so much easier than actually trying to figure out what to use!
I was hoping that green would be friendlier as it is my favorite color...rats.