Messy Middle – Stone Carriage House Gym Conversion

The messy middle of any project, but especially converting a stone carriage house into a gym, feels exceptionally long.

Sometimes it actually is long.

I realize time is annoyingly relative. A long time for you might be nothing to me and vice versa.

But trust me when I say that when the hours turn into days then weeks of repointing stone walls, you’re allowed to say and feel that the messy middle of this project is taking way too long.

I don’t make the rules.

I do love to whine about them though.

Here’s where we started with the stone carriage house gym conversion.

Yes, there is a fireplace wall because our gym will be fancy like that.

Kidding.

I think the moss on the floor indicates this is anything but fancy.

The fireplace is also not useable because the chimney is capped and we’re pretty sure the chimney itself needs some work to be safe.

But it does make for a lovely feature wall.

We chipped off the outer layer of lime mortar that was skimmed over the wall so that the stones on the wall were visible. It takes a hefty dose of elbow grease and determination to remove old pointing. We used a brick hammer, chisel, and a hammer drill for this part.

We aimed for about an inch of lime mortar chipped out around each stone so that the new mortar had enough depth to adhere, but sometimes the mortar just crumbles and you’re left with bigger holes to fill.

Not only does this take more time, but also more mortar. We will have used around 1,500 pounds of sand to mix the mortar for this 9-ft x 13-ft space. Who needs a gym when you can lift 50-lb bags of sand?

We also chipped out the concrete that had been smeared on the wall. The hammer drill with a chisel attachment is the only thing that made a dent in the concrete and it still took hours and hours to remove. Concrete on old stone walls (stone veneer is different) is not a good combination. It doesn’t allow the wall to breathe, among other things.

The debris you see on the floor is just the smallest fraction of what was removed from this wall. Keep in mind if you tackle a project like this the debris that comes down has to be removed and you need a place to dispose of it.

We’ve used our snow shovel more for shoveling lime mortar than we have for shoveling snow. Not sure if that’s a reflection of the state of the climate or how much repointing we’ve been doing. Maybe both?

Once the stones were exposed and vacuumed clean(ish), I started repointing around the stones with lime mortar.

Lime mortar is limestone, sand, and water. We used natural hydraulic lime (NHL 5) for this project. It is rated for building structural walls, repointing walls below the freeze/thaw line, and even building sea walls.

The outer layer of mortar (the layer we’re removing and repointing) is considered the sacrificial layer.

It definitely felt like a sacrifice to apply it.

Joking aside, this layer is really important because it protects the inner guts of the wall from anything that could harm it like weather, pests, and weeds. If the interior of the wall stays stable and secure, the building should remain standing.

No matter how you slice and dice it, repointing lime mortar on stone walls is time-intensive.

Since I’m a pretend mason and my training comes from YouTube, I am not efficient with masonry tools yet. That probably slows me down. Occasionally, I’ll use them for applying mortar to tight spaces, but I find my hands to be the best tools I have to apply and smooth the lime mortar.

Tip of all my hats to the real pros who do this type of masonry work day in and day out. It’s not only a skill but a true art.

One of the stone walls in this room has proven to be a real headache.

Like this project hasn’t been hard enough.

The problem wall started out looking like this.

While cinderblock construction is fine for some situations, this is not one of them.

The cinderblocks had to go and that left a huge hole in the wall that needed to be repaired. It took 300 pounds of sand, 60 pounds of lime mortar, 3 1/2 hours, and a bunch of new rocks for my husband and I to fix that hole in the wall.

By new rocks, I mean old rocks that we have in various piles and walls on our property. We aren’t rich in much but we are rich in actual field stones dug up out of the ground.

Here’s how the wall looked about 30 seconds after I finally finished repointing it.

The middle section is still wet but I was anxious to document my progress.

If you’re anxious about how long this blog post is going to be, now you know how I feel about the messy middle of this stone carriage house gym conversion.

When will it end? Will it be before I lose my mind?

Stay tuned to find out if two people fueled by determination, YouTube videos, and an uncanny knack for picking the biggest pain-in-the-butt projects can finish this stone carriage house conversion anytime soon.

How do you feel about the messy middle of the project? Do you want to skip to the good stuff like we do? Let me know! You can always leave a comment on this blog post, email us here, or reach out via Instagram or Facebook.

Happy DIYing.

Thanks for hanging out with me today. I hope you had fun. I can tell you it’s a lot more fun than stone repointing, so that’s something. If you’d like another blog post to read, I’ve got you covered. Try one of these.

Plan to Convert a 250-year-old Carriage House Into a Gym

Foot Wear On Our Stone Steps and a Basement Mystery

DIY Halloween Decals With Duct Tape