Hammerhead Stoneworks

I didn’t have a jar of marbles with me, so I made one from some red clay and cured it in the sun.

A Gray Tree Frog (Hyla versicolor) is an uncommon sight at any time, as they are well camouflaged, hide way up in trees and are entirely nocturnal. Odd then to find this little guy way out on a branch on a cold November morning. He was chilly and not inclined to move much. Once the sun hit him around lunch time he got more motivated and went into hiding.

At the top: Close up of some joints between stones.
Middle: Bug tracks that appear every morning in the dust. Centipede?
Bottom: Power cords.

I made this handout to accompany the fossil floor. The family has four kids and I hope that the floor piques their curiosity about geology. Maybe this ‘story’ will get hung up in a cabinet and forgotten, to be discovered many years from now, yellowed with age, when someone else takes ownership of the house.

A couple of weeks ago I finished the Fossil Floor in the house in the Ramble. (The blog inevitably gets neglected in springtime as work, garden and playing outside take precedence!) Fossils, like this goniatite, appear here and there throughout the floor. There are four kids in the household and I tried to include elements that would interest them. I think the best stonework has details in it that reward closer attention.

The lighting is a little funky, but this is a view of the finished floor in a small bathroom on the main floor. Mexican beach pebbles turned on edge run in trails in the main paths, but only appear as individuals in the smaller stone background that surrounds the paths.

One of the interesting challenges of the project was how to lay out the pathway. I couldn’t really do it in the space, as there was no room to spread out the stone to look at it all and I wasn’t going to work the stones indoors- too messy and noisy. I did the majority of the design outside. First I ‘drew’ the general shape of the path out of string on a mulch bed. Then I added the big plates of full-color bluestone to form the edges. I did both sides and some stones that led off the path to stairways and the laundry room. I didn’t do too many of the smaller fill stones, knowing that setting the stones would subtly shift their relationships to each other. If I over prepare, I end up with more variation in the joinery than I really want. I didn’t cut the doorway ends until I was ready to install them, to make sure that I hit my targeted edges spot on.

As a result of doing the layout that way, I ended up with spaces in the path that required filling once the edges were laid in the thinset. Using construction paper, a big pencil and a pair of scissors, I created templates for each space/stone. Then I’d wander outside and find matches for each. Since the matches were rarely ideal, I wold then cut them down with the grinder before bringing them inside to install. It’s important to label the templates properly, because if they get flipped over, the stone won’t fit. And the bottom of a worked stone never looks quite as good as the top. The goal of this process was to find stones that fit with the fewest number of trips. It was probably twenty paces between the stone pile and the floor. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it really slows progress to go back and forth that many times. Once I settled on this templating solution, I was fairly efficient with filling those smaller spaces.

This is the floor in its finished form, again in my driveway. It’s damp, which really makes the colors pop. Not sure what to do with it now. Any koi enthusiasts out there need a 4′ by 8′ floor?

The Western Carolina Home Show takes place next weekend at the Civic Center here in Asheville. This will be Hammerhead Stoneworks second year representing. I spent the entire weekend (and will spend much of the coming week) making ready. This year I’m showing off flatwork. The following images show some of the work thus far.

I’m very enamored of pebbles right now. This is a detail from the step that will welcome people into my booth space.

The whole step, 2′ by 4′.

About sixteen square feet of rustic flagstone paving using a locally quarried gneiss, called Hooper’s Creek.

These images have been sitting on my desktop for several weeks now, waiting for me to upload them. These are all creatures discovered while I was working on the cabin chimney in Madison County.
This is a Giant Leopard Moth just emerged from his cocoon and drying his wings on the cabin sill. These moths come from the Wooly Bear caterpillar. Notice the iridescent blue knee joints. His abdomen had bright orange spots on it.

This Ringneck snake wasn’t much bigger than the moth. He was hiding under the tarp I used to protect the sand, meaning he had a steady diet of roly-polys and millipedes readily available.

Cathy found this guy in the garden. It’s an Eastern TIger Swallowtail caterpillar. Those eyes are markings meant to deter predators.

I lost a wedge and set of feathers in the lintel stone. The stone broke cleanly, but this wedge, at the front edge of the stone, didn’t split quite right. The wedge remains, well stuck in the stone. In this picture, the wedge is set about two inches back from the front of the fireplace. I am leaving a ‘truth window’ in the stonework, so that you can look inside this little pocket and see the stranded tool.

This is my work space in the cabin, morning light filtering in. The recessed floor is where the hearthstones will be set.

There are marbles throughout this project, including this playful little dragon, well hidden in the face of the fireplace.

This tiger beetle has been a shiny emerald skittering around my stone piles.

This spring has been the wettest in years and the salamanders are in seventh salamander heaven. Everyday I see a few, under stones, in the creek or sometimes just walking around in the damp leaf litter. I believe this to be a Mountain Dusky Salamander, but I am not certain of my ID.