Continuing Under-porch Storage

Today was the last wall, the stairs, and a start on the brick flooring.

Andrew slipped down the hole a couple of nights ago, so the stairs have been rather high priority -- but have needed lots of work and waiting time. Concrete on the back; supports on the back; fitting and painting the treads with sandy paint so it will offer footholds in the rain.

Today's pictures are of the floor (half done) and of Andrew cleaning the mortar off the bricks. The bricks are left over from the chimney, and thus still coated with lots of mortar. You rub two mortar-covered bricks together, however, and the stuff dusts off. Andrew likes to do it dry, with a respirator on (it can't be good for the lungs) -- I prefer to soak the bricks the night before so it comes off as a heavy wet sand. To each his own.

The floor is already more advanced than shown here -- Andrew worked again until there was no light left. It is simply the broken bricks (with a sinuous pattern of a couple lines of unbroken bricks) laid down , with sandy gravel poured over and between. There is also a layer of larger gravel on the dirt hidden behind the walls, again to slough off any rain that comes in.