Trolley Barn

Today was very interesting. Our school is moving to a new campus next year, and it will be in the city's old trolley barn which was built in the late 1800's. A construction company is renovating the building, and we were able to go help out there. It was the first time I have been on an active work site, but it was really cool to see how everything is done. I made mortar and then was told to rip out some loose bricks and then reset them with new mortar. There was a lot going on but after I got used to it I really liked what we are doing. I am glad we are able to help out with getting the new campus ready.

Here are some of the bricks I took out and reset, you can tell if you look closely at the mortar joints, I also laid the block above:

Today I was able to actually work on a wall laying new bricks. I started on one section someone else had already laid a few courses the week before and was to build it up from there. Here is what the wall section looked like when I started that day:

For this section, there were some irregularities in the margins of the wall, which made it difficult. Each course you had to measure and then give measurements for a cut brick to fill the changing gap on the right side. Our instructor told us that this is what restoration work is all about, and that things are constantly changing depending on the condition of the building. The original bricks in the building are a slightly different size than the ones we are using so there is some variation in the courses.

This would end up being our last day on the site, and today was probably my favorite day so far. I was given a blank section of wall to brick up so all work done this day on this section was mine. It turned out pretty well for the 12th time I have laid bricks I think and Is much better than my first wall at the start of the semester. I forgot to take a picture of it before I started working, but by 10 o'clock I had built it up 12 courses