I began planning for the stone work that we had decided to put up on the north wall of the basement this winter, bringing the last of the stone in from storage outside where it had sat for the past five years, a home for spiders and squirrels. I had to let it thaw out and dry before laying it out on the floor to make sure there was enough to completely cover the wall, approximately 100 square feet, minus the section cut out for the big screen TV that was going on the wall. As the propane stove is in that corner of the basement it was always our intention to have stone behind it rather than driwall and a heat shield. I covered the wall first with Durock cement board as I had done in the living room and brought up the bags of Quikrete type S mortar. Marie finished the electrical outlets, covered them up and we were ready to go.
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| Will I have enough to do the whole wall? |
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| putting up the Durock cement board |
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| enjoying winter meanwhile |
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| a visit from some wild turkeys as I work to keep me company |
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| stone veneer going up! |
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| done! |
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| Driwall and first coat of mud on! |
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| Ben enjoying a wonderful February 21st thaw of 17 degrees Celsius! |
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| Marie by the waterfall, Feb 21st |
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| ice formation I found in the woods |
In between finishing the stone work we went to Montreal to attend Amy's sixth birthday and, sadly, celebrate the life of Marie's aunt Therese, who died on January 20th, in Sherbrooke. But before completing the stone work I put up the last six sheets of driwall in the rest of the basement, painted the area where the TV will go a flat black and brought in a few tiles to see how they would match with the colour of the wall. The last stone went up in the middle of February and, to my surprise, I had about 50 pieces left over. Before starting on the tile I painted the walls (one side a dark blue, the other a beige to match the lightest shade of the stone) and removed most of the furniture from the room. Again the biggest problem was where to put it. With snowstorm after snowstorm on the horizon there was no chance of putting it outside so into the spare bedroom it went. ...should have built a bigger house.
gws
