i'm digging for dryer

Let me introduce you to our new moat.

It's not completely finished yet... but not bad for one person and two days of digging. It's not all in madness, we're digging down so that we can waterproof our basement. It's not a really damp basement but we do get water accumulating in one area when there are big storms. That one area happens to be the exact spot where we want to put our future washer and dryer. We've already installed the hook-ups and the vintage sink that we just added a drainage pump to is right there, so we can't change the w/d location. When we had the roof and gutters fixed we thought it might fix the problem but twice since then we've had bad storms and about an inch of water in that corner.

This is all the handiwork of Keith. Keith was once a grave digger. More excitingly he used to work on a tugboat. I have an irrational love of tugboats. When you love tugboats, St. George, Staten Island is the place to be... I get to see them every day. ;)

Keith's been having problems with finding a place to store all of the fill. It's already piled up the length of our fence and now we have an enormous mountain in our yard. I swear - the yard really was clean - right before we started our very own Big Dig.

What to do with that brick?

The brick hearth in the kitchen came out two tone - red paint and a strange mustard yellow color. At first we thought okay let's just clean it off. Then after careful consideration we decided that not only would that be time consuming, we weren't sure that the traditional exposed brick look was the look we're trying to achieve in our kitchen. Yes, the rustic red of exposed brick is beautiful but as I was picturing it in my head I just couldn't see it with the modern fittings we've already picked out. Plus, if the exposed chimneys in the attic are a good example, I don't want mortar crumbling over my stove while I'm cooking! Yes, I know you can seal brick. ;)

Here she is in an early shot with some of the old framing still in place:

One look I've always admired is the brick wall treatment at BDDW. Digging around online I discovered that the owner achieved the look by layering joint compound over the brick surface. Since we had nothing to lose (we'd still have to clean the brick anyway) we decided to scratch up the paint with some sandpaper and start layering.

We discovered that joint compound will take some time to dry (especially on a humid day) and it is best to not try to help it along. After using a fan on the surface we had cracks on a test patch. Lesson learned and fixed with more compound.

Here you can see the progress (thanks to my Dad) so far:

I'm really liking the look already and hoping it will hold up over time. I'm not really worried since it's interior brick and not exposed to moisture from the elements. I think we'll paint it a similar white for a bright, clean look.