Pressure washing and a tour

After Kelley pressure washed all of the mortar residue off of the brick, the difference was stunning. So I wanted to give you a clean tour of the brickwork in all of its glory! I could call this one of the finished project posts, it's the last masonry I'm going to be doing for a while.

Pressure washing at work

in progress

I worked hard too

The clean brick really shines

The front and stairs

The stairs & knee walls really came out clean. The color of the bricks offsets the gray floor nicely

This turned out really great. And it is one of the first times we're seeing a "finish" in this long project!

A Practice Roof

I know how I want to build the big roof on my front porch. But I've never really done that before. And with a 10' ridge going out to a gable that covers a 21' span, that's a big roof. Build the gable first, set the ridge board in place, then cut & hang roof joists off of that.

There is another door that goes out to the driveway. We have no garage, so you park the car when it's raining, then fumble in the rain and the dark to get keys out and get into that door. Sure would be nice if I had a little roof to protect that door. There's also a concrete pad to stand on which is crumbling away. The driveway is gravel, so that's no help. And since I just finished doing all of that masonry, my concrete itch can be scratched again.

Before - crumbling and small. I outlined the new concrete area

The form is ready

If you look closely, you can also see that the bottom of the door trim is completely rotten. I started by outlining a 4'x6' area for the new concrete pad, then removed the existing concrete and dug out the area for the form. I used 2x6's for the form, sank 4 steel rods and cut a 10' rebar in half for some anchoring and structural strength. There is some existing concrete there, this part of the house used to be a carport. I had to cut a slant into the form to meet this. The old concrete came out pretty easily, there was lots of old brick & other filler in there.

Filled with 13 80-lb bags of high strength concrete

Preparing the roof rim. Notice the treated 6x6 stubs on the corners

Ledger board is attached

Stood up the rim on these posts

it's pretty cool

It took 13 bags (80 lbs each) to fill the form. I placed a couple of J-bolts in the concrete as well to anchor the posts to the concrete. These decorative posts have been hanging out in the backyard for about 5 years. we knew eventually we'd find a use for them. There was some rot I had to cut out on the ends, and the posts were different lengths. Since I had some leftover 6x6 posts from the front porch, I cut stubs to make the posts the same height at the center, where the turned section started. I planned for a square roof rim at a specific height, so I had to be sure the posts were tall enough to support the roof rim.

Then I cut the siding and hung the ledger board, so that height became set in saw. I nailed the rest of the rim together on the ground, then had to get Kelley and the kids to help me hold it in place while I nailed it up to the ledger and then stood those posts in place afterwards. Needless to say I didn't get a picture of that.

But now the concrete is dry, the posts are in place, and the roof rim is hung. This is where the porch currently sits as well. So next up, I have to actually build the practice roof. Gable end, ridge board, roof joists, ceiling joists, lookouts, sheeting, felt, shingles, trim.

Finishing the masonry

Framer in action. This is totally safe.

We're reaching the end of the masonry and boy it cannot come fast enough. My hands are so tired of laying brick. My back aches from mixing mortar and concrete. It's time to be done, there is one column and two walls left to go.

Wall is getting close to the floorboards! And the column is now taller than the floor

This wall still has a ways to go

The finished stairs. All of the bricks are finally in and the stairs are done!! Done done done!!

The front wall is done! Done done done!!!

Finishing off the stairs and that wall is a huge milestone. Especially the stairs. That took forever. It was such a slow process. But the end result is perfect. The stairs have a 7 1/4" rise and a 12" run. They are comfortable and easy to get up and down. And the wall comes right up to the bottom of the floorboards. I'm still amazed that my math actually came out correct on that.

The last column is up!

The last column is finished!! Done done done!!!

It's tall too - almost as tall as I am - 6'

I'm going to wrap up the bricklaying with a tour around the porch. To show off my finished products

Left wall, with the handrail and roof rim/post framed up already

The family loves it

I love this offset detail to bring the stairs out from this post

The stairs

already having fun on the new porch!

The front wall & right 2 columns

The right wall is finished!!! Done done done done!!!

And that is all of the bricks. There is still one other thing I have to do to completely finish the masonry. That last column needs to be filled in with concrete and capped off, with the cap rebar & j-bolts put in to anchor the post topper.

The cap is poured!

It's 2x4's to get the depth of the cap, with 1x6 wrapper to get the height

Kelley added some personalization to the last cap

And it's done! That makes done done done done done!! Topper and anchors attached

And with that, all of the masonry is complete. I'm so glad I can part ways with the mortar hoe for a while. Now I have to get into those handrails and the roof!

Time for some woodworking

We decided to make shiplap siding for the handrails to give the porch more of an enclosed feeling. Not having ballasts for the handrail that you could see through gives it a cozy, intimate feel. That means I can use traditional wall framing techniques for the handrails. And since I just got a new air compressor for Christmas this year, I bought a framing nailer and was ready to go to town. Let's build walls!

The weather didn't want to cooperate for a while to get more bricks down. I had a few days to fill.

Let them eat posts! 6x6x8' posts to support the roof

I cut, routed, and painted the tops of the handrails before building the actual handrails

Lumber for walls now mixed in with the concrete & mortar. Let's hope they get along

Installed the post toppers and 6x6 anchors to hold the first 2 posts

New air compressor (Craftsman) and framing nailer (Rigid) - and a wall

My eldest got some anime wig & costume - hilarious!

The kids holding the wall in place

Next day I got it anchored to the brick

Also mounted the left ledger board, first post, and the header for that side!!!!!

There was a couple of days when the temps got high enough to actually lay some brick too. Very small pockets of progress can be made after the polar vortex came through.

It's starting to look like a brick wall now!

This side too. getting there!

Next post, I'll get the stairs finished off, make more progress on the roof rim, and possibly finish off the masonry!