The Wall

We took off the shutters this morning to discover a stunningly beautiful wall. Beside the expected drama with the window box that did kick and pull, we were very happy with our first effort, especially the coloured veins that had a natural look about them.

The red stem wall bricks and the red vein complement each other well. I'm hoping that the windows will do the same with the charcoal grey vein but this we'll only find out later in the month.

Now we're at the 'patch 'n hide' school of rammed earth. We had to cut and fill the window cavity to get it properly square & plumb and making it match the existing finish is testing our abilities of improvisation - but we're learning something new every step of the way. In the meantime, we began ramming the second wall and made far better progress than we did with our first attempt. We doubled the number of walers around the midsection and this seemed to provide the additional rigidity that we were missing yesterday. Without a window or door volume displacement box, there was no fiddling around and the tamping team progressed easily through all the lifts.

Tomorrow, with two walls up we will begin to get a better appreciation of the final product. And if we continue at this pace, most of the walls on the south side will be up by next week. Then we will have something stunningly beautiful to remind us of what is possible when you set your mind to it.

And finally, the weather deserves the greatest thanks: overcast, nicely cool and dry.