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A Pretty Happy Home

Life, DIY and Random Things That Make Me Smile

  • Home
  • About
    • About
    • Contact
  • Shop
    • Apparel and Shoes
    • Books
    • Crafts and Sewing
    • Decor
    • Furniture
    • Home Improvement
    • Kid Favorites
    • Kitchen
  • Projects
    • Cleaning
    • Clothing
    • Colonial Farmhouse
    • Crafts
    • Decorating
    • DIY Projects
    • Holidays
  • Adventure
    • Moving to Ireland
    • Living in Ireland
    • Visiting Ireland
    • Travel
    • Family and Parenting
    • Humor
    • Learning
  • Privacy Policy
  • Home
  • About
    • About
    • Contact
  • Shop
    • Apparel and Shoes
    • Books
    • Crafts and Sewing
    • Decor
    • Furniture
    • Home Improvement
    • Kid Favorites
    • Kitchen
  • Projects
    • Cleaning
    • Clothing
    • Colonial Farmhouse
    • Crafts
    • Decorating
    • DIY Projects
    • Holidays
  • Adventure
    • Moving to Ireland
    • Living in Ireland
    • Visiting Ireland
    • Travel
    • Family and Parenting
    • Humor
    • Learning
  • Privacy Policy

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  • curved fieldstone wall the mailbox and gate plan DIY fieldstone wall contstruction historic masonry with lime mortar
    DIY

    Curved Fieldstone Wall: Part 10, Mailbox and Gate Plan

    October 1, 2025 /

    Welcome back to our Curved Fieldstone Wall Series, where we attempt to rebuild the fieldstone walls in our front yard using historical masonry techniques. When we last left off, I had shared the progress on the second section of the wall and the potential problem with road salt. You can catch up on that here. Now it’s time to share the plan for the mailbox and gate. Don’t worry. There are also progress pictures on the wall itself. I wouldn’t deprive you in that way. To put it delicately, the gate and mailbox have seen better days. They both have some rot and peeling paint. The gate requires a complicated…

    read more
    annisa 6 Comments

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    Curved Fieldstone Wall: Part 9, The Salt Problem

    September 24, 2025 /

    Welcome back to our Curved Fieldstone Wall Series, where we attempt to rebuild the fieldstone walls in our front yard using historical masonry techniques. When we last left off, I had shared the progress we had made on building the second section of the wall. You can catch up on that here. Today, I’ll share more progress (yay!) and discuss the one thing out of our control with this project – salt. Personally, I’m a big fan of salt. We need it to stay alive. It makes food taste delicious. What’s not to love? Guess what isn’t a fan of salt? Lime mortar. What are we using to build our…

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  • curved fieldstone wall part 8 progress section 2
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    Curved Fieldstone Wall: Part 8, Progress Section 2

    September 17, 2025 /

    Welcome back to our Curved Fieldstone Wall Series, where we attempt to rebuild the fieldstone walls in our front yard using historical masonry techniques. When we last left off, we had built the first wall section, demoed the second wall section, and built stairs. Anyone tired yet? Ha! Now, it is time to connect the stairs to the second wall section and show you the progress we’ve made with the second wall. I’ve been working on it every day for a few hours, and the unvarnished truth is it’s a slow slog. The main reason why it is so slow is that we are reusing the rocks from the old…

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    Curved Fieldstone Wall: Part 7, The Stairs

    September 10, 2025 /

    Welcome back to our Curved Fieldstone Wall Series, where we attempt to rebuild the fieldstone walls in our front yard using historical masonry techniques. Today we are talking about the stairs between the two wall sections. The first wall section is already complete. The stairs were not a part of the original plan. We intended to leave them alone because we were going to exercise restraint, like the reasonable DIYers that we are. Hahahahahaha. The original stairs connecting the driveway to our sidewalk were concrete, which makes sense. The sidewalk and the stairs match. The stairs were a little wonky in size, and one looked newer than the other, but…

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    Curved Fieldstone Wall: Part 6, Demo Section 2

    September 8, 2025 /

    I’m back with part 6 of our Curved Fieldstone Wall Series. This time we’re discussing demo of the second wall section we’re working on. Here’s the thing about our DIY projects. They never go according to plan. Why do we bother planning? I don’t rightly know. We expected the demolition of the second wall section to go as quickly as the first section. While the second wall section is twice as long as the first, it was built the same way. In addition, a quarter of it had already demoed itself for us. THAT’S the kind of effort we like to see from inanimate objects. I guess the rest of…

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    Curved Fieldstone Wall: Part 5, Porch Wall

    September 1, 2025 /

    We’ve been working on rebuilding a curved fieldstone wall in front of our house. Part of that wall connects to our front porch, and a little oopsie occurred to the porch wall while doing demo. We didn’t intend to touch the porch while doing this curved fieldstone wall project. We know when our plates are full. Unfortunately for us, the unintended consequence of jackhammering three inches away from the porch was that the vibrations traveled, and we cracked a section of the skim coat covering the porch foundation. That was fine. We could probably fix it. Then, much to our horror, the cracked portion of skim coat FELL OFF the…

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    September 24, 2025
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    Curved Fieldstone Wall: Part 4, REVEAL Section 1

    August 27, 2025 /

    It’s reveal day for section 1 of our curved fieldstone wall! Can I get a WOO to the HOO? I know some of you made a woohoo sound in your head, so thank you for that! We are fortunate to live on a property that is framed by low fieldstone walls. 250 years ago, our property was much larger than it is now and would have been farmed. We assume the stone walls or fences were built as a practical way of dealing with all of the stones that were pulled out of the soil to make it arable. Fast forward to the present, and there are multiple sections of…

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    Curved Fieldstone Wall: Part 3, Progress Section 1

    August 25, 2025 /

    Progress feels good, and we have made significant progress on building Section One of our curved fieldstone wall. If you missed Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, those are a rockin’ good time. Here’s the section of wall that we are rebuilding. With all of the rocks out, that area looked kind of weird. Scratch that. There was no “kind of.” It looked flat out weird. Best we get to remedying that. I started by repointing a section of the front porch foundation that we exposed during the wall demolition. Not only does this foundation need repointing with lime mortar, but this way I’ll be able to secure…

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  • diy curved fieldstone wall demoing the old wall on a colonial era farmhouse
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    Curved Fieldstone Wall: Part 2, Demo Section 1

    August 18, 2025 /

    In case you missed Part 1, we are building a curved fieldstone wall. Or, perhaps, it is more accurate to say we are rebuilding a curved fieldstone wall. Today’s post is all about demoing the first section we are rebuilding. This section of wall connects to the front porch and serves as a retaining wall for a flowerbed. Demo is supposed to be the easy part of any project, right? Hahahahahaha. Easy might not apply to concrete. Or maybe easy just doesn’t apply to anything we do. Once again, the hammer drill with a chisel attachment was our MVP for taking down a stone wall, but we did use a hammer…

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  • BEFORE DIY low curved fieldstone wall
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    Curved Fieldstone Wall: Part 1, The Plan

    August 13, 2025 /

    Drumroll, please! Our next masonry project will be to rebuild a curved fieldstone wall in our front yard. Who’s excited for this one? *raises my own hand* I am excited for this project mainly because this fieldstone wall has become a major curb appeal issue, and not in a good way. Remember the children’s rhyme about Humpty Dumpty? Now imagine Humpty Dumpty sitting on the wall, and the reason he fell off was because the wall collapsed under him. That’s the sketchy situation with the wall in front of our house. Most of it is a low, curved fieldstone wall that is only a couple of feet high. There is,…

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Hi! I'm Annisa.

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