Masonry is artistry
(March, April & June) Expert masons from Artistic Masonry and NorthShore Masonry contributed to our project during the early framing and structural, when the porch was constructed and during the early inside work.
As Mike and I watched the brick work and later the flagstone work Rich and Mark were conducting, it was clear there was scientific skill, artistic intuition and brute force required. It’s amazing to think that this is a building trade that dates back to the Neolithic age when animals were first domesticated and people started to live in one place and build homes with mud, straw, or stone. So many of the impressive buildings around the world — Egyptian pyramids, Greek and Roman temples, Incan structures, French castles, or Italian Renaissance buildings, are examples of the fine skills of masons.
Master stonemasons, woodcarvers, and sculptors, represented in a bas-relief (1408) on the external facade of the Orsanmichele Church, Florence, Italy. Original Image by: By Federico Magonio.
While in today’s world, a lot of masonry work is done with the benefit of machines and automated tools, our masons were committed to carrying out their craft using the old techniques.
In a 40 second video Rich shares his own history in masonry, references how he continues using the “old ways,” and explains why he enjoys the work.
During the framing phase, they had to fill in with brick where there had been doors and windows so we had a level wall of brick around the front part of the house.
Filling in the old front door with brick….
Mark fixes brick under the kitchen door in its new location.
Rich mixes concrete.
You can see from the layers under the windows where the bay window used to be.
When we first planned for the porch, we had settled on simply having a concrete slab. However, once this was poured, it looked rather plain, so we decided to look into dressing it up a bit more, as this really needed to say “Hi!” to passers-by (see here and here for posts on the reasons behind the porch). Our landscape designer, Cliff Miller, proposed a flagstone cap to the porch and face brick underneath. When we saw Cliff’s cutaway elevation, we were impressed with the level of detail — we were sold!
50 second video - Mark from North Shore Masonry talks about working from no plans but rather artistic instinct and craftmanship.
Laying the flagstone for the porch
Continuing to design and craft the porch
15 second video - Porch work continues!
Almost there!
Nearly complete!
Kitchen door stoop built to match the front porch.
The next time we saw Rich and Mark was when they came to cover up the dated “no-color” brick over our fireplace that we looked forward to having as a centerpiece in our family room. Thanks to our visit to the home of Julie Ondo (our designer), we were sold on having a beautiful stone mantel surrounding our fireplace insert.
Mike K, Mike B and Rich determine the height for the stone and the mantel which will be made from the wood of our own honey locust tree.
Hearth gets the first facelift.
Finished! (we’ll write a different post about the fireplace insert itself!)
15 second video of fireplace masonry work
40 second video - Rich talks about the challenges in masonry work.
25 second video - Rich talks about what stands out about our type of renovation.
Two amazing artists!
It’s really cool to see craftspeople using highly manual skills to build anything. We have a new appreciation for masonry and will look at any historical stone building we visit in the future with new appreciation thanks to Mark and Rich.