When we were fixing the basement last November (I'm almost ashamed to write that being as we didn't get to this project until now) we had to punch a big hole in the foundation to get the largest beam in. We chose this spot because it was the site of what we think was the original coal chute and the foundation was thinner there anyway. In any case, the hole has been there, plugged with towels and insulation, for quite a few months now and with winter coming, we didn't just want to leave it.
So we got our trusty kitty litter box and mixed up some mortar and went to work.
We had most of the stones we took out still in the basement and the first layer went in pretty easy. Matt was in charge of shoveling in the mortar while I fit the stones together and smoothed everything out.
We added some pink plastic insulation to protect the wood beam for the next layer.
And in no time, we were done! We did have to take a short break to mix up another bag of mortar and to scavenge some more rocks from ours and the neighbors yard, but I'm pretty pleased with the result. If you weren't looking for it, you wouldn't' notice at all.
Then we went outside and patched the rest from there to make it look all pretty and smooth from the outside.
Also looks pretty good, and it dried even lighter. And then Matt had a great idea for the extra mortar. He used it to fill in some of the cracks on the other side of the house where we had some water come in during that 2-3 weeks of torrential rain this summer. (haven't seen any since then, but while we had the mortar out, didn't seem like it could hurt)
And now we're all buttoned up and ready for the storms. Yay!
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