Brick Tile and Wrought Iron

As part of my bathroom remodel last winter, I tiled the bathroom with some brick tiles.  These are actual bricks that have been sawed into tile thickness.  I just love the look of the brick floor and walls.

I also added some wrought iron towel hooks and tp holder.



Wrought Iron Plate Rack

Here is a wrought iron plate rack that I built for my wife a year or two ago.  It is built entirely of bent rod.  The little finials are 1/4" rod and the rest is 1/2" rod.  Just bent it up and welded it together.

Miles and miles of retaining walls

I have a lot of retaining walls in my yard (I live on the side of a hill).  So for the last several years I have been installing stone in place of the rotting railroad tie walls that were original to the yard.  Here are a few pictures of the first walls I have done.

I added a curved bench along the first stretch...

I also cast a few concrete finials from a mold I made out of a vinyl fence post cap.

I still have several hundred feet of retaining wall to go :(
It would go faster if I didn't keep coming up with features that I want to add to  the wall.  I am currently working on an earth-bermed shed that is dug back into the hill on another section of the wall.
I will post some pics of that in the spring.

Door arches

So as it gets below freezing with the onset of winter and a loss of daylight I turn to my indoor projects.  Here's one from several years ago.  I wanted to make some arches for a few of the doorways that don't actually have any doors.

To begin, I framed in some 45 degree corners out of 2x4 lumber and then added a piece of thin bender board to form the arch shape.  I then cut sheetrock to fit and taped, textured, and painted the finished area.

I also added a few small plaster castings and a sheetrock "key" at the top of the arch to dress it up.

Patio and Pergola

So this fall I finished the patio that I added to the back of the house.

Here's the concept sketchup drawing of the patio.

The whole area was dug down 12" and footings 48" deep were poured for the pergola support columns.

New concrete steps were cast for the back entry.  Heres a pic of the new steps and the columns going up on either side.

On the end next to the stairs, I cast some concrete balusters.

Natural gas, power and water lines were run to the counter island location.  The whole patio was filled with crushed stone, and then sand, and pavers were installed.  I built a stone kitchen counter with a sink and gas grill and then the whole thing was roofed with a pergola structure.

Here's a few pictures of the nearly finished structure with the pergola slats going on...