Horse Sitting

Chumley and Paulie having breakfast. I have been house, horse, dog and cat sitting at Dan's for the last few weeks. It's hard to be away from home but always nice to spend a little time in "the country", and Pittston is most definitely that.

The Mock-up Behind the Mock-up

This is the dry laid mock-up that will today become the wet laid mock-up on the chimney. I hope.

Are You Going To Scarborough Job?

  So, we finally started the big Scarborough job.  We didn't waste any time getting our tent-shanties set up and heated.  I overheard one of the carpenters saying, "Man, they've got a whole little city set up in there."

  And indeed, we do. Complete with chiseling tables, rock shelves, microwaves, grinding boxes with exhaust fans, propane heaters, and kegs of beer.  Well, no beer, but everything else.  Here Richard Ware(wolf) is hammering away at one the tables I built.  I made his a bit taller than the rest, as he is like eight feet tall.

  And of course, there is Danny Harrington:

  And Damon:

  As you can see, we are doing a stone veneer on the foundation, so everyone is working on their knees for awhile.  I have been out back putting together a mock-up for the chimney, so the owners can check it out when they come in next week.

  The edges will have to be softened and "tweaked" before the stones are mortared in, but that is the basic idea.

Up On The Roof (Again)

  It was nice to finish up the inside work and let the owners' get back to some semblance of a normal dust-free existence. I imagine they will be cleaning up the fallout dust from our demolition for weeks. Emma the cat, who greeted us daily and kept a wary eye on our progress, will be happy to have a little privacy, too.

  Anyway, up through the roof and away...

  And what a view from up there, looking out over Casco Bay.

  I have said it before, working on the coast of Maine, we are blessed with having these amazing views on almost every jobsite.

    We finished up just as the sun went down.  In fact, I had to grab these shots before it got dark and I wasn't even done setting the flu.

  We still have to go back in a week or so, after the fireplace insert is installed, to do the cap and wash.  Meanwhile, be sure to stop in Freeport at the owner's yarn and needlework shop: Grace Robinson & Company. www.yarnandneedlepoint.com. I hear it's one of the best in the state.

Ready To Head Back Up

  Well, we tore the existing chimney down to the first floor and jack-hammered through the floor slab.  Now, eleven thousand pounds of removed material later, we are ready to start rebuilding.  The new fireplace insert has been ordered and we can prep for its arrival.

Damon really gets into his work...

Foreside Fireside

  Damon and I started tearing down an existing chimney and fireplace in lovely Falmouth Foreside two days ago for a rebuild that we will start on Monday.  Another job with Dan Ucci of Ledge Hill Creations, that he is doing with his brother-in-law, Chris Grenlaw of the Dovetail Group. (207-415-8604).

  Chimney demolition is always enjoyable, albeit strenuous; but this one was a bit tougher, as it had only been built four months ago!  There was nothing structurally wrong it, but the design was wrong for the space and the brick bump-out in the living room just consumed too much square footage.

Picking Rocks Again

  I love it, but every time I do it I am reminded of how exhausting it is.  We have been picking off the remnants of an old and toppled wall on a mountaintop in Hope for the last few days.  This one is long as hell and, incredibly, almost ten feet wide in spots.  Most of it is at or near ground level and much of it has long sunk into the earth, so that we find ourselves pawing downward into these little foxholes.  The stones are gorgeous, however, and worth every bit of effort; moss covered and lichen strewn with a wonderful variety of shapes and sizes.  The whole fifteen-yard load will be fully picked and ready for transport to Scarborough by the end of today.

  Then the ubiquitous amazing view that comes with working outdoors in Maine...

  Then this happened on the way home... in the valley... in the fog... and snow... as the sun went down...
it was terrible...

Just in the Saint Nick of Time

  So, our hopes of finishing the walkway before Christmas dissolved on last Friday's snowy afternoon, as it rapidly became clear that we were short on stone.  We covered everything with heating blankets and headed home for the holidays, wondering aloud if we would possibly see another day warm enough to finish before Spring.  Christmas came...

and went...

  And lo and behold, Monday bore temperatures nearing fifty.  So we headed out early in search of enough bluestone to finish, which proved to be more difficult than we had anticipated.  The forecast was calling for temperatures in the single digits and we knew we had to finish before nightfall.  Viking Hardscapes, bless 'em, had no open pallets.  We drove out to JC Stone in Widsor and they were completely out. They suggested we drive down to NC Hunt in Damariscotta, which we did, and they had exactly what we needed. They are always a pleasure to deal with, by the way.
  It was ten o'clock by the time we reached the jobsite and we must have looked like a couple of lunatics, with saws roaring, dust clouds rising, rocks flying, running back and forth to the stone dust pile, hammers and chisels and swearing--determined to finish before sunset.  And we did.

  We left out a few stones up near the house, so the carpenters can finish their addition, and we'll be back in the Spring to loam the edges and cracks.  I believe the plan is to plant thyme or some kind of "steppable".  I like it. Damon likes it. The homeowners seem to like it. It has, as Mike said, "A kind of fairy-tale cottage feel."

The Beast of Bremen

  Well, we decided to take on a stone walkway down in Bremen before the ground freezes up for good. It was wet and cold this morning and cars were sliding off the roads (as we nearly did on more than one occasion), but it is supposed to be above freezing for the next few days and we are going to jump through the window while it's open. 
  We started off the day in the rain, shoveling the crushed stone out of the existing path.

  Our stone dust showed up in massive frozen hunks, as if it was reforming itself back into actual stones, and so we were forced to blast it with the propane fueled weed-burner and bury a heater cord inside.  We covered it with a tarp and are hoping that our efforts, combined with the prognosticated temperature rise, will enable us to spread the stuff tomorrow.

  The home looks like an early 19th century brick farmhouse, which the owners (who seem great, by the way) have done a wonderful job restoring, and the property is lined with fantastic old stone walls.

  And a great old chimney still standing, obviously where the original homestead was.

  And if you meet this guy on your way down to Bremen...

  DO NOT stop to ask for directions!

Sheep Meadow Farm

  Damon and I spent last week at Sheep Meadow Farm on the island of North Haven, doing a job for Dan Ucci of Ledge Hill Creations.  As some of you may know, we were out there last year for about seven months, and it was nice to come back. The isolation of the place really bothers some people, but I find it hard to leave.
 Anyway, we went out to Sheep Meadow and built a circular patio with a 15-foot diameter out of what is commonly referred to as stand-up blue stone. That doesn't mean it is stone with sound moral and ethical standards, but blue-stone that is actually stood up on edge on the pallets, so as to make for difficult and unwieldy transport.  Here are a few shots of the farm and estate:

  The caretakers Doug and Kenny pretty much had the spot dug out for us and prepped when we arrived.  They removed yards of wet clay, put in drainage, and covered it with compacting sand.  So all we had to do was fire up the compactor and run circles around it for an hour.

  We spent the next few days laying out the stones, cutting and chiseling joints a half to two inches.  We worked till dark every day and spent the evenings relaxing and reading in the comfortably furnished guest apartment.  We finished on Friday and drew our radius, with Damon on the center point and me at the other end of a 7 and a half foot string, drawing a perfect circle, which we then cut out with the saw.

  Just in time to catch the next ferry home, which made Damon very happy.

Triple Chimney Down

  Hired by the Potter Building Company--owned by my good friend Tom Potter--Damon and I reluctantly removed three chimneys (or 'chimbleys' as they are oft' referred to in these linguistic hinterlands) from a three-story building that is under complete renovation in Rockland.

  I despise heights and postponed the job for many days, in hopes that the chimbleys would collapse of their own free will.  That failed to happen, however, and I was eventually faced with the reality of having to climb up on the roof and knock them down with a hammer, which was made somewhat easier with the use of the jobsite's new pump staging.  The chimneys came apart easily, with most bricks coming loose without even having to strike them.
  The most difficult of the three was the front chimney, which was over seven feet high and almost entirely devoid of mortar in its midsection, so that when I stood on my tip-toes to strike the top, the whole chimney would lean and threaten to dive into the street below.

 

   Here, Damon is wildly abusing a shrinking chimney in the attic.

  We put the bricks in buckets and flung them from the third story window into the enormous bed of the large truck pictured in the first photos.

  House sans chimbleys:

  Also, I need a longer truck.