Laboring on Labor Day

This is just what we do on weekends and holidays.  Work on the house.  I finally finished all the @$&*# deck railings just as the weekend began…

(This would be the “middle” picture.  It’s done now, but seriously.  Name me a worse painting job than a second story deck with 1”x1” railings every 4”.)

 

….so that we had time to throw Kyla a birthday party, completely repaint the master bath (mold problems—now completely taken care of and looking pristine), and then complete the first layer of bricks for Dwayne’s Fricking Big Wall.

This is the part of the walls and stair Dwayne had completed last year. 

 

Looks big?  A drop in the bucket, my friend.

In the last few months, we build both sides here…

continued the inside wall down and around….

 

and continued…..

 

all the way to the other stairs.

 

Every single brick is about 80 pounds.  We hauled yards upon cubic yards of gravel (to give a good, level foundation) and lots of rocks to stabilize each brick once it’s in level.  Dwayne lays each one down—because this calls for perfectionism and I don’t qualify—and I do as much as the heavy lifting as I can between calls of “Mama-duty”. 

And did I mention this is the 3rd time building this particular wall?  So not only are we building this, we are also digging out the sand we had originally laid, and carting back uphill all the small blocks our younger and naïve selves used seven or eight or nine years ago. 

I really, really hate this project, though I will be the second to admit how great it will look if it ever gets done. 

The only thing worse than building walls out of 80 pound brick down a large, steep hill is painting deck railings.  But I’ve griped enough about that.  Besides, the next time the railings need painting, the kids will be old enough to do it, and the time after that….we’re getting Trex.

Thank goodness Labor Day is over for one more year!