I do have to confess, I am a junkie. I’m addicted to excellence, quality and beauty, that arise from a complex situation in which people apply their knowledge and passion to solve a riddle. Add a pinch of synergy and the potion becomes magical!
Last time I shared with you the story about a segment of a load bearing wall that was removed and rebuilt, this time, there is more magic wall tricks in store for you.
Want to make the doors and windows higher? If you’re an architect, I’m quite sure you’re familiar with the command ‘stretch’: you select the end points of the lines on a drawing and extend them to the desired length. So that’s exactly what I have done on the south façade to make the windows and doors suitable for people higher than me 🙂
How does ‘stretch’ translate into real life on a stone wall? Piece of cake. You just remove the stone frames around the openings, raise the aperture, rebuild the structure above the hole in the wall and voilà, you have extended your view onto the world.
Step 1: remove the stone frames of the doors
Step 2: get the new, higher stones for the sides of the frame
Step 3: transport the heavy stones with the crane
Step 4: build the frames in
What about the windows?
Step 1: remove the existing frame of the window
Step 2: use the stone acquired from the door frames and cut them to the desired height (we recycle as much as we can)
Step 3: transport the stone frames manually
Step 4: build a wooden construction for the arch
Step 5: build in the stone frames and insert the temporary wooden construction
Step 6: support and align the wooden construction
Step 7: build an arch above the window
Step 8: repeat for the other window.
We did find one intriguing detail under all the layers of paint we removed from the stone frames and I can’t resist the temptation to share it with you.
It is an art work containing a star and the name of a personage who sculpted the Balkan region more than any other force in the 20th century. Can you recognise the name?