It's Time For Columns!

So this week my brother and I have been very busy working on the exterior of my house.  We added another layer of stone to the top of the wall and also installed the drip sprinkler system for all of the flowers and bushes.  It took four truckloads of dirt to fill in the raised bed.   I also finished adding the landscaping lighting.  Right now there are 6 LED spot lights and 4 halogen lanterns.  Once the halogen bulbs burn out, I will switch them to LED retrofit bulbs to keep the energy cost low.  Below are some pictures of the new columns.  We tore the old railing and columns out and installed the new support posts.  You may see that each column has two posts; but only one of them is load bearing.  The other post stops about six inches below the top of the column box and is just to add to the decorative element.  We still have to add all of the raised moldings to the columns.  I will also be putting new railings back in once the stone is completed.  The old railings had rotted away and were beyond salvageable so they will all be new.

We also started the stone work on the columns.  The boxes on the bottom of the columns are made from exterior sheeting.  There is quite a bit of reinforcement behind the sheeting to help carry all  the weight from all the stone.  We then covered the sheeting in roofing paper (tar paper) and then attached metal lathe to the surface.  This metal allows the mortar on the back of the stone to have something to stick to. 

You can see below that we have a little of the stone on the column bases, but it was late in the day today when we started stone and we wanted to make sure the mortar on the bottom four rows has cured before I add all the weight above.  This is all real stone so it is quite heavy.   I figure it will take at least a week to get all the stone completed since it is really just one huge puzzle to find the right pieces and then the next step will be painting. 

 No pictures to show, but my brother also painted the entire fence in my back yard with a solid color stain.   It really made it look like new but you all will see it in pictures later on.  Well that is all for now.