Lee
Since an early age I've been creating, building and modifying the world in which we live. Raised by some master crafters, I've learned so many skills they all seem to have blended together into a meta-skill. I'm a creative problem solver and a college educated analyzer of businesses and systems. I bring a broad perspective having lived and worked in the most rural settings to the most modern of locals, and I'm at home everywhere I go.

Brick Wall Renovation

This is a current and ongoing project.  Job is fairly simple.  The apartment owner decided he wanted make the room a little bigger by removing the framed out sheet rock walls.  He was also interested in the beauty of an exposed brick wall.  Unfortunately like most interior brick walls in the city, they weren’t built for aesthetics originally.  The mortar work is rough and some of the bricks are broken or scored.  To make this wall look good, it will definitely requires a re-pointing job.  What follows is a pictorial transformation from an untouched wall to completed form.

 

wall1

The Beginning, the as yet untouched brick wall.

 

wall2

My set up to try to contain the grinding dust, while at the same time making it possible to breathe and see while working on the wall. We have a plastic zip-wall, and industrial air sweeper, tarps on the floor, and a tuck-point grinder collected to a shop-vac.

 

wall3

I used a second shop-vac to clean the filter of the shop-vac connected to the tuck-point grinder. Since I was pulling in almost exclusively dust, the filter had to be cleaned very often in order to keep the system working.

 

wall4

A closer look at the wall before the grinding started.

 

wall5

A post grinding look at the same section of wall.

 

wall6

A bigger view.

 

wall7

At this point the wall has had mortar removed to an 1/2″ depth. The surface of the bricks have also been ground down to remove old mortar, paint, etc.

 

mortar

The pictures that follow show the re-pointing of the wall one batch of mortar at a time. It took around a hour to use up each batch of mortar. Bigger batches would have been wasted because they dry to much to become workable.

 

wall8

1

 

wall9

2

 

wall10

3

 

wall10

4

 

wall11

5

 

wall12

6

 

wall13

7

 

wall14

8

 

wall15

9

 

wall16

10

 

wall17

11

 

wall18

12

 

wall19

13

 

wall20

14

 

wall21

15

 

wall22

16

 

wall23

17

 

wall24

18

 

wall25

19

 

wall26

20

 

wall27

21. That result I was working for. A fully re-pointed wall.

 

detail

A closer detail look at the finished wall.

 

I just completed the re-pointing this week.  The final finish (most likely a flat oil-based polyurethane) won’t be done until the other renovation on the apartment is finished.  More details to come.

myself

In place of real biographical information (which requires time and effort that has yet to be expended) let me just offer this brief bit. College Educated Academic Type with a Combined Business Major specializing in Analyzing Things. Coupled with an Artistic Earth-Centered Country-Raised Kid with an Expansive-Green-Organic Adulthood while being many things including Heretic Ecentric and Risk-Taker. In there somewhere, you might find some insight into the cognitive being known as Lee Semanek.

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