Those Wonderful Spinneys

  I just want to say "thank you" to the Spinneys, the lovely family we worked for last week down in Boothbay. They couldn't have been more accommodating, helpful, friendly, or grateful. I leave jobs like that one (which are a true rarity) feeling like I should be paying them, instead of the other way around. It's only been a few days, and I miss them already. Thanks, guys.

  It was the wrong time of day to photograph wet bluestone, but you get the general idea. 75% of the patio was reusing the stones that had been there previously, which the owners cleaned with a pressure washer after we laid. Remarkably, one could not tell the difference between the old and new stones afterward.

  The retaining wall is a manufactured product called Verazzo Stone, which is incredibly easy to install and very strong as a finished unit.

  
  Spinney the Spider...

Hamburger Hill

  Last week, Mike Fitzgerald and I went up on the hill and finished off the last 30 feet or so of "Trigula's Great Wall of Horrors" for Paul Belcher of Midcoast Masonry.  It wouldn't have been so bad, except there was 30 feet left to do, complete with Oak Hill caps, and probably enough money left in the budget for 10. Needless to say, we broke our backs and managed to finish in a couple of days, so we didn't lose our shirts too bad. It came out nice, too.

 Here is another shot of the lower courtyard area, which was done two or three years ago.

Entomophobia

  Damon and I finished a handsome little 64 square-foot patio today in Camden for a wonderful couple from Texas. They really were a pleasure to work for and I now consider them not only customers, but friends and neighbors. They chose a great restoration brick, which I believe is a Montpelier Red, and a granite cobble border that brought the whole thing together nicely.

   It can go either way when a customer has the materials chosen and the design all laid out. It either makes our job easier and we just waltz in and put it all together, or it's a complete nightmare and nothing fits or matches and the project looks so horrible when we're done that my camera suddenly runs out of battery power and refuses to take web-shots.  These guys definitely belonged in the former category and even volunteered to help us dig.  It is truly the rewarding and pleasurable jobs such as this one that keep us going through tedious and difficult times that invariably arise in any of the trades.

 
  At one point today, we ran back to my house for some tools and I spotted this terrifying and beautiful event dangling over the truck...

  The cruelty and sadness of remarkable Life and Death struggles...

"Toulouse-Lautrec's Garden Trowel"

  I did this little sculpture-patio for a very sweet couple in Camden a few days ago. Nothing fancy, just something to define the piece and bring together with the sprawling hillside gardens, paths, and walls. The piece is entitled "Toulouse-Lautrec's Garden Trowel" and the artist's name is Amy (Something, I will find out what). It spins on its axis, which scared the living hell out of me the first time I bumped into it and sent it spinning.

The Start Center Walls/Aphrodite"s Gift

  Went over to The Start Center just down the road from my house and started building some walls with my good friends Ronald and Margaret, the actual "starters" of the Start Center, wherein they practice a form of healing know as RCT, or Re-Connective Therapy. You can read more about it at their website: http://thestartcenter.org  Meanwhile, here are some pictures:

  When, I went home for lunch, Laura told me to take in a look in the back yard and this is what I found:

   That's our Mews...

A Safe Landing

  Tom Potter of the Potter Building Company(207-595-3315), asked us to do a small landing patio at one of his jobsites a few weeks ago.

  Damon and I found some nice granite, Deer Isle, I believe; and we added a few cobbles in the corner to create a raised bed for planting.

  Here are a few shots of our friend and stone sculptor, Dave Curry (who also has scuptures at Harbor Square Gallery in Rockland now) thermalling the final slab of granite before installation. Thermalling uses high temperatures to flake and pop off the outer layer of a stone, giving it a rougher and more natural appearance. It can be a touchy process, however, and if the stone is too thin or weak or has hidden fissures it can spit into pieces and be rendered completely useless. This particular stone was our last piece and there didn't seem to be any left in the midcoast, which meant we would have had to have Josh at Rockport Granite fabricate a piece just for us literally out of a mountainside, so needless to say, we splashed alot of cold water on it while Dave worked, and we held our breath...

What Weighs More, A Pound Of Stone Or A Pound Of Junk

  Swung by Irik's and got a few shots of the "Patio That Wouldn't Die". It's a hard one to shoot, as the bullets just seem to bounce off.

  But then we did this...

  I swear, I never tire of Jackson's Salvage Yard...

Just Walk Away

  In two days, we installed the remaining upper stretch of Bruce and Pam's fine granite walkway.  It took a little longer than the lower section, as there were challenges in bringing together the different grades and positions of the top step, the garage door, and the driveway entrance; and of course, we didn't have Bruce's brute strength or razor-sharp eye helping us do the prep and layout, as he was busy moving about three tons of leftover wall-stone by hand! But it all came together beautifully in the end, nonetheless.
  This landing stone in front of the garage door was my favorite out of the bunch:

   A veritable Rorschach Stone...

Driveway Walls of Hot Heaven

  So, after about five weeks of being sequestered on a 600 square-foot patio nightmare island of back-breaking labor and financial ruin, we were able to get back out to Damariscotta Lake and finish the wall on the other side of Bruce and Pam's driveway. And though it was almost a hundred degrees on Tuesday and Wednesday, we were extremely happy to get back to a sensible and creative project in a peaceful environment controlled by kind and sensible people. I think we are going to stay there permanently...  Maybe if we just work 2 hours a day, 3 days a week, we can stretch this thing out to last all year.

Instant Walkway, Just Add Water

  We went out to Bruce's on Damariscotta Lake Saturday, uncertain whether or not the rain would hold off long enough to make it worthwhile, which it did for the most part. Bruce had a swale all dug out for the desired walk and a pile of random pieces of cut and thermalled granite. The edges were rough, but all we had to do was establish a loose design, measure, and cut to fit. We had a fine granite walk installed in less than 5 hours, just as the rain turned from a drizzle to a downpour.

Pool Sides

 
  I should have done before and after pics of this one. A few weeks ago, some really lovely people near Lincolnville Beach asked us to give them an estimate on putting pavers around their swimming pool. The job entailed digging out existing crushed stone and laying pavers up to the concrete pool surround. I wasn't sure how I felt about the idea, but, like them, short of tearing everything up and starting over, I didn't see any other reasonable option.
  We got to work and were almost instantly satisfied with the results. Not only were the pavers an aesthetic improvement, but they added a lot of extra usable space. Extra "grilling" space, if you will. The owners were happy and we were happy to work with them. Another one of those rewarding little jobs that don't come along nearly enough.

Damariscotta Lake (Where the Blackflies Roam)

  So, this is the first wall we built with Clark on the lake, and the next will essentially be a mirror on the other side of the drive.  And yes, the blackflies were horrendous, and yes, they did carry Damon away. We spend so much time working on the ocean, where the breeze tends to keep them away, that we forget how bad they can be inland.

The Walls of Clark Doody

  Damon and I spent last week building walls with our friend, Clark, on Damariscotta Lake in Nobleboro.  We were just getting there at the tail end of a job he had been doing by himself for a few months. All of the wall you see in these two photos was built by a crew of one, a crew of Clark. And there are more! Clark Doody (hope I'm spelling the last name right) is the owner of CND Masonry 563-6548. He is a whiz when it comes to fireplaces and chimneys, a brilliant concrete finisher, and a pleasure to work with.