As you can see the stone walls on the project are moving along nicely. Of course the progress you see did not happen over night.
These bluestone walls are being built by experienced stone masons.
If you stood there and watched for awhile, you’d admire the skill and patience these guys have. Each piece of stone must be hand-tooled to achieve the fit and finish this style wall requires.
In addition to building for structural integrity, there’s a constant attention to appearance.
We wanted a generous mix of larger stones in the wall. This would give an appropriate look of scale and proportion considering the height and length of the wall.
Notice how the filter fabric and gravel (top pic) is following up the backside of the wall as it’s being built.
At the base of the wall and surrounded by gravel is a perforated drain pipe that will carry water away that might collect behind the wall. This is certainly one of the key ingredients to a long-lasting wall.
If you’re a homeowner and the contractor is not providing this drainage in their construction, call your town’s building dept.
In my last post on this project we saw the block work being done for the masonry steps.
Below we see the integration of the masonry steps with the dry-set stone wall work.
The bluestone on the face of each step riser is cut as a veneer. The pattern appears as a seamless connection to the wall. Bluestone step treads will soon be added.
Next we’ll take a look at the start of the other features on this project. We’re already installing conduits, utilities and other provisions to support them.
Here’s the previous post on this project. And here’s the next.