Okay, I had a plan and it just flat wasn't going to work....so I decided to Change the Plan.
My idea originally was that the upper part of the door would have all that rock, and that the sides would be encased pillars or pilasters or something like that. The bottom parts are straight enough, but the top sections left and right needed to have a slight curve along the edge of the door. After some searching I found wood suitable enough size wise, but of course I had to do some cutting to get them shaped properly.
Unfortunately I simply don't have the tools to do this properly. I tried, I really did....I used a jigsaw that I simply could not keep under control, I tried a table saw while carefully working the wood as I turned it, I tried using a simple a handsaw. None of it worked, and after basically wasting an entire day I basically only ended up with a bunch more scrap for the fireplace. It was clear that I wasn't going to be able to make the arch at the top of the pillars properly arched, and I frankly was running out of patience.
So after some due consideration I decided to continue the rockwork down from where I had stopped earlier to the straight sections on either side. As it happens that is exactly five feet (60"), so I needed to extend the rockwork about a foot on either side.
Attaching the rock per se isn't going to be hard because I have a lot of the thinset mortar. The more difficult thing is to find rock that would fit the space to either side of the doorframe--I used virtually all larger rock and the vast bulk of the remaining decorative rock was all cut by the builders. That meant they were basically flat on one side and certainly didn't look at all "natural". Bugger.
Fortunately one aspect of living on a gravel road is that it is basically made of rock. Lots and lots of rock. Big rocks. Small rocks. Pretty rocks. Rocks you can use on a door....
So I'll be spending the next couple of days gathering rocks for the door. Thought I was done with this bit, but there you go.....monkeys gotta adapt!
Steven in Colorado
My Construction Website
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