Hi everyone!

A slow week went by, with daily heavy rains it's not always easy to find the motivation to work outside.

We installed a 50 square meter fleece and pond liner on top of the build, and started backfilling with dirt.

It's a lot of work because we have to dig the overgrown pile of dirt that's been sitting for 5 years on our lot, first getting rid of the roots in the top soil. But we have to do this manually as the back is only reachable through a narrow path in our neighbor's garden.

My partner also installed the electrical panel with 24V circuits for RGBW LED strips, a PoE WiFi access point and connected the wall outlets to the 230V main. It was temporarily connected to test how bright the strips will be. They will later be mounted in metal railings across the whole length of the lower brick line, with a wood cladding.

We will then have to dig a 20 meter trench from the house main electric supply, lay a PVC pipe and pull a 3-phase copper line to the cellar. This will be the garden hub to provide electricity to the future outdoor kitchen.

The next few days we will work on the mortar joints, using the multitool diamond blades that arrived in the mail to finish the cleanup before grouting all the joints cleanly.

Have a great week and keep on doing it yourself!

Hi everyone

It's been a while, I skipped a couple of weeks to get things going on our project!

Last time I wrote we had finished 3 slices of the roof. In the meantime, we finished the 4 next ones and completed the roof.

Eventually we were able to do a complete layer in one day, the second one on top the following day, and move the wooden structure the third day.

We held off laying the last slice to finish the front wall (and be eventually able to attach the ceiling to it), making a door lintel out of cinderblocks and reinforced concrete.

The suspense was high whether we would have enough bricks to finish the project and it turned out we had just 3 extra at the end!

One of the bricks revealed a handwritten signature which turns out to mean "Ludwig Herman". We are still investigating who and when :)

Next, we will spend many hours cleaning the grout from the inside to free the bricks and make nice regular joints. Then we will insulate the outside with a pond liner and cover the root cellar under a thick layer of dirt.

See you soon!

reference

Finally i'm gonna be able to contribute!

Hello everyone! Thank you for all the positive comments last week.

We managed to double the length of the vaulted roof, laying the 3rd and 4th slice, in four 3 to 4-hour sessions.

The bricks are from old dismantled buildings, still covered in lime cement and need to be submerged in water and brushed individually. My SO is doing the laying, and I'm cleaning + assessing each brick.

We also get better with putting a smaller amount of grout to avoid spilling, because it's going to be a lot of work to clean all the joints.

This week, we expect to be able to lay 2 additional rows, and next week do the last slice, finish the door lintel (new word!) and front wall.

Lastly, a picture of me, because you know, we're getting familiar in the c/Do It Yourself family <3 Have a great week everyone!

Decided to build something rather complex as a first project and it's proving challenging at ever step of the way, but I'm really proud of how it's turning out.

We'll have a lot of work to clean the joints but it's going to be worth it I think. Something for the generations to come, if it doesn't collapse :-)

Today I celebrated my 11th year in my company and spent 2 days baking a variety of pastries

• strawberry yogurt mousse twisters with velvet chocolate cover
• mango & passion mascarpone spheres with mirror glaze
• banana caramel chocolate mousses with velvet chocolate cover
• mini lemon tart with Italian meringue
• mini star anise chocolate ganache tarts
• opéra layered cake with coffee buttercream and chocolate ganache

Baked using the recipe of French Canadian Chef Michel Dumas: https://youtu.be/4ITLp4nRnnc