House Renovation: We Built A Wall

Yes, it’s done. It’s standing (still, as far as I know) and it is a beautiful wall.

When I say we built it, I mean, everyone contributed, but my mum actually put it together. So she definitely deserves all the hand and back massages in the world. Also, it’s her first wall and I think, there are a few more to come. Not just in this house, but likely also for one of her many other projects. I make her sound like a wall-building machine (I mean, she is. I’m amazed!), but she also needed a well deserved break in between lifting bricks (13kg each) and jamming mortar in gaps.

The days we worked on the wall

We had a pretty good system. I carried the bricks up the ladder to my mum, who then did her magic with mortar.

My husband mixed the mortar and lifted buckets of it on to the scaffolding. In between, he emptied a corner of loose stones, levelled the floor some more and shovelled bucket loads. Hagen did some glamorous shopping (you know, bricks and mortar), shovelled and unloaded trailers full of soil.

Besides lifting and carrying the stones up to the platform, my contributions were a bit more trivial like taking photos and videos and trying my hand at chiselling. Though, I am pretty sure that sculpting the bricks into particular shapes to fit in holes and under beams is not an art form.

Some background

The house we are currently renovating used to be half of a house. It had been separated ages ago to make two out of one, basically. So, there is a wall behind our wall. But, we wanted to build this wall because the existing wall separating the two houses is only 5cm thick. In places, especially on upper floors, we could easily remove plaster and have clear conversations with our neighbour and share a croissant. Not ideal.
The new wall is anywhere from 10-20cm in addition to the existing wall, adding stability and privacy. Currently, it’s open whether my mum will continue her masterpiece another level or three or if we build another structure of some kind.

I know it still looks like not much has happened, but, believe me, this WALL is a major milestone. We all cheered and went to the beach to celebrate. Naturally, with a dip in the sea.