Last Wednesday, the mason finally showed up to install the stone wall. No joke, I hadn’t felt like blogging because the stone wall was unfinished. I know that sounds pretty lame, but it is true. There was something about that wall that felt monumental to me. It felt like the last thing, even though it wasn’t–isn’t.
Anyway, the guy showed up with two helpers and began prep work. Before laying the stone, he needed to nail chicken wire to the wall and coat it in a primary layer of concrete. It looked like mud.
Now, try keeping two young boys off of a tower of mud in the exact middle of the house. Yeah. Right.
It was a crumbly, dusty mess, but I wasn’t the least dismayed. The mason said it would take 24 hours to set, but he’d be back to lay the stone then. I thought, “Hey, we can handle this for 24 hours!”
Thursday passed. So did Friday. On Friday night, we called our contractor and asked what was up with the mason. He called us back. Saturday, he said. The guy would be there on Saturday.
So, while we went to Breakfastland, and made a trip to Target (the thirty-fourth trip that week), and while I napped with the younger set and David took our eldest to piano lessons… they layed the stone. All but the last eight bricks.

They ran out of corner pieces at the end, but returned yesterday evening to finish up. It looks incredible. I told David that the stone wall makes everything, every room, even the stairs, look better. I don’t know how or why, but it just gels the whole thing.

I only have one complaint: It may take years to get rid of the dust. As they lay the stone, one guy would spread the mortar, and the other guy would scrape off the bits of concrete and stone around it to make it fit properly. The result was a thin layer of dust over every surface in the entire house. David and I swept, mopped and dusted in a tizzy after they left, trying to clear the air. I am still removing the residue today; it seems to settle when the A/C clicks off.