Another Brick In The Wall

If you're not familiar with Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall", go find it on the intranet and you'll be hearing it play in your head for the rest of this post!!

It's back to the Loft Project again.  Before we could complete the staircase, the large wall and the second floor needed to be completed.  So for those who were hoping to see more on the staircase, you'll have to wait one more post first.

Both Lisa and I decided we wanted to use real clay bricks for the walls, both inside and out.  I had used them in my Street Scene, seen here or below for anyone who hasn't followed my blog in the past, or have simply forgotten, because you know it has been six years since I last posted!! (Can't believe you've forgotten it though...lol).

So with this in mine we determined we needed nine bags of brick to complete the entire project inside and out.  So thanks to Freedom Miniatures in Kentville, Nova Scotia our order was placed.  Shelley at Freedom provided us with a clear list of all our colour options.

As I mentioned it took a little measuring and calculations to figure out how many bricks we need.  You can see they are quite small.

We also ordered the lights from Freedom Miniatures.  We had an idea of how we wanted the lights to look and it all started with this lowly product, the suction cup.

We had a little bit of bricks in our stash already so we started on the project.  But since this project has not been without it's challenges, in the coming week, the pandemic hit our province and one of the first places that had a breakout was our local Canada Post sorting facility, so our bricks did not arrive for many weeks, no fault of Freedom Miniatures, but simply due to the limited staff at the Post Office.  (Remember we started this project January 2020).

Here's the windows now in place in Lisa's loft and painted black. The separation of the windows is also a great look.

Lisa started installing a wood shiplap wall on the sloped section and painted her window frames black.  She installed the outline for a former door, to be later bricked in on her first floor.  We added a wood beam mid way to accept the second floor.  You'll also see our brick colours are slightly different, Lisa has a whitish brick in hers and I removed this colour brick from the bag of bricks.

In the meanwhile, we built the second floor ensuring that our staircase lined up with the floor perfectly.  We had to channel the wiring for two of the lights through this section. For this section we did channel it though the floor under the wood that would cover the ceiling.  It was then channeled out through the wood beam we installed in the large wall.  All the other lighting ran through the ceiling/roof and then channeled down the outside of the building to the base below.  More to come on the wiring and lighting in another post.  Once we bricked over the outside the wiring was buried behind the brick.

I also made the ceiling for the top floor, shown here with the ceiling for the first floor.  I stained both of mine in a medium stain.

Here's the second floor in place on my loft, you can see the wiring hanging down for the lights that will be mounted to this ceiling.

Here's all the bricks laid in place before grouting.  As you can see it was a tremendous amount of bricks just for the inside.

I made mine look like there was formerly a window on the second floor that had since been filled in, using a different colour brick.  The second floor was set to line up with the top of the circular staircase shown here.

I painted my wood sloped wall in a black like the windows.  Not quite sure on this look at this point.  I'll see how it looks when there is more in place.  Nothing is grouted at this point.

Lisa's second floor.

And in place

Lisa did a lighter finish on her second floor ceiling. 

We installed our flooring, I did a wood floor and Lisa did a faux concrete floor.  Love the faux concrete floor, complete with expansion joints!!

By this time I think the scope of the work for the brick laying was starting to set in and Lisa was thinking we were no longer going to be friends over my suggestion to use real brick...lol.

Here's her first wall almost completed.  

Once the shorter wall's bricks were started the challenge of arranging the bricks around the separated windows came to light.  It took a few attempts, and a lot of removed bricks, but in the end it turned out great.

Then I grouted the first completed wall, first protecting the floor from the grout.  This is what it looked like prior to washing off the excess grout.  A lot of the intensity of the colour looks like it's gone at first, but once the excess grout is washed off, you'll see the grout only dulled it a little bit, which the brick needed.

By this time it was really sinking in that this was a major undertaking and by then we were both isolating at home working on our projects and also working our full time day jobs from home.  Face Time became our new meeting forum on the weekends.

We'll continue the project once the shipment of lighting and bricks arrive from Freedom Miniatures.

More to come on this in the next post.  

𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮 All in all it's just another brick in the wall 𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮......

Until then.....

Wanda (oh yes, and Lisa)