Chipping Off Weeping Mortar

Recapping briefly, my first pig's ear had weeping mortar. And what made it a larger issue in the eyes of many was that it had been painted, greatly impacting the impression of this bricklaying. This was my first exposure to this style of masonry, and I wasn't sure how to deal with it.

As I mentioned in a previous post, one visitor suggested I grind it all off, that I rake the joints. However, I knew this was more work than I wanted or needed to bite off. Since this house had been condemned, a livable situation that was a casualty of an out-of-control dryer fire, I had a long list of pressing scopes of work. And the clock was ticking since I’d agreed to a twelve-month timeline with my lender. Even if I could have connected with someone willing and able to carry out this task, it would have certainly wrecked my limited budget.

Raking the weepers myself wasn't an option. First off, flying solo grinding out joints that totaled nearly two miles would have worn me out. And I was hesitant about my ability to estimate the time (or pricey blades and bits) the grinding/raking approach would have required. Nearly everything about this option was unappealing. At this point in my career, I had years of construction experience but not much logged in residential work. Although I was curious, I knew in my heart (and gut) that starting down the raking path was a mistake. More than intimidated, I was certain I must avoid opening up what would be a huge can of worms.

I had an issue that needed a solution and eventually landed on chipping off all the weeping mortar. The picture above shows approximately fifty square feet of joints or 250 lineal feet. If I tried to rake all these joints, besides the time and cost, I would have had to take precautions so I wasn't breathing in grit during the hours of work I would be taking on. And I'd be faced with pushing through unavoidable fatigue, battling the chance that the grinder might get away from me and either damage bricks, or jerk into the wooden shutters or the frieze board under the soffit.  

If you look at that picture again, keep in mind that I was dealing with this amount of chipping times a little over forty, greater than two thousand square feet. But as I mulled it over for several days, I became more comfortable with chipping it off as my best remedy.

Rather than jumping in, I decided to do a small sample area on the back side of the house, just to see how long it took and then ultimately looked. I did about two square feet in less than five minutes. Plus, I was surprised by how much I liked the textured joints this chipping created, and to me, it was better than the painted weeping mortar I currently had.

Two thousand square feet seemed immense until I arrived at my plan to break it all up into bite sized sections—twenty-five square feet at a time. I estimated that each would take around thirty minutes, adding up to about forty man hours. I built myself a 4’x8’ cubed scaffold to work the top half of the façade and fell into a daily groove. Then, I’d slide the box frame into place for the next day and move onto some other work on my list.

This no-power-tool approach wasn’t difficult, there was minimal dust, and I settled in on one five-by-five-foot area each evening after work, then double or tripled up on weekend days until it was all knocked out.

A month after starting, the end result was unique. I found it distinct and tasteful, contrasting with what I’d inherited at the closing. It felt like progress while the rest of the house was still looking pretty rough. And in a small town full of doubters, I began to win over a growing group of interested observers.

Links to recent posts on weeping mortar:

Embracing Weeping Mortar - July 13, 2026

Moving Beyond Weeping Mortar - July 20, 2026

Grinding or Raking Weeping Mortar Joints - July 26, 2026

The Cottage - Interior Pics, Before/After

The Cottage project followed The Fire House.  As I've written plenty of times before, I moved every door and window on this house as well as all the interior walls except one that was original to the first small building.  I didn't set off to change everything so drastically, I simply just got carried away.  During demo I kept going and going as I played around with various floor plans, and before I knew it, the place was gutted.  I hadn't completely gutted The Fire House, so with this little house wide open, I felt free to radically change things and really go nuts.  I would ultimately add on front and back porches outside the two relocated exterior doors.  Other than these little add-ons, the core footprint of the house on the small lot was about the only thing that didn't change. 


The Future Foyer - Before

The shell of The Cottage was like a blank slate in many ways with my biggest challenge being the 6' 4" ceilings on the first floor.  Before I was set on a new layout, some wise and thoughtful person was nice enough to tell me that these low ceilings would negatively impact my appraisal when I was finished.  This is because when an appraiser is doing their math, any space with a ceiling height lower than seven feet gets classified as storage space and calculates out significantly cheaper.  Yikes!  For me, on this house, that was like three hundred square feet (over half the first floor), so I needed a solution. 

The Foyer - After
This is the same view as the picture above with the couch. 

In order to make the house more valuable, I tore out the porch and roof over the front of the house and that allowed me to create an interior balcony over the new foyer.  This also created some valuable extra storage space in the form of two deep closets on the second floor.  To deal with the low ceilings on the first floor, I demoed the section where the new dining area and den would be built, placed concrete, and installed heart of pine flooring that I had salvaged from the interior walls.  Then, I started putting everything back together on the rest of the inside. (See Floor Plans, Before/After) 

The second floor had 7' ceilings, but I reframed those to get up to eight feet.  When I was finished, the upper floor contained two bedrooms, a half bath, four closets, and a balcony overlooking the foyer below.


The Old Stairs where the future Dining Area would be - Before

The Old Stairs are gone. Same view as above - After. 

View from 2nd Floor looking down into Foyer.

New Kitchen - Like The TV House, I moved
it from the back of the house to the front.

        

Fire #2 at The Fire House

We could call The Fire House 'The Fires House' because this project started and ended with two separate, unrelated fires. 

The Detached Garage
Before Fire #2 (and the Garage Door)

In the 1990's, a dryer fire in the laundry room quickly got out of control, ignited some charcoal lighter fluid stored in the attic over the den, and exploded into an intense house fire.  That disaster ultimately resulted in the four bedroom ranch being condemned by local building officials after it had been vacant for years.  I agreed to buy The Fire House in 1999 and closed on the property in 2000.   The renovation took twelve months. 

Fire #2 happened in 2002.  I was visiting family in the Midwest when I got the news.  This was just ten years ago, but times were a little different.  We didn't all have cell phones with numbers programmed into them like we do now.  A neighbor had to find someone who had a number for my family up North.  Eventually, after the message bounced between a few people, my parents heard the news, got a hold of me, and said, "One of your buildings burned down." That was all they knew, so that was the message I got.  Yikes!  At that time, I only owned three buildings; The Fire House , The Cottage, and The Detached Garage at The Fire House.  The Cottage was still being renovated, but TFH w/ it's DG were finished and this property was on the market to be sold.   

Before my thoughts raced too far ahead, I made some calls back to South Carolina and confirmed that the DG was the one lost.  I felt some relief since (of the three) it was the least significant and the easiest to replace.  When reality set in, I had seven hundred miles to drive and think about the loss of my garage (while I tried to do an accounting in my head of the things I had in the DG versus what was in the houses).  When I turned the corner to see my property, I was surprised by the extent of the fire.  I had expected to see some evidence of the original outbuilding, but it was gone.  It was a small black pile of charred remains.  There was hardly anything left.  It made me think of that scene from the movie Independence Day when the aliens obliterate The White House.  It was like those same space guys flew over my building and fired away.  Crazy. 

My detached garage was gone.   

 

The Detached Garage after the fire.

This is the grand old tree I lost.  It was struck by lightening during a storm in the middle of the night.  We believe that the strike and the metal roof on the DG sparked the fire.  I had trim and left over paint from The Fire House renovation stored in the DG and this likely helped the fire grow quickly.  The firemen thought the rain on the outside allowed for the fire to build and gain strength on the inside.  I had a lawnmower and some gas and wood stored inside and all this caught fire and burned up.   

The Detached Garage at The Fire House

The Carport/Storage Building at The Fire House

Having extra space under roof in the form of a garage, carport, barn, basement, or storage building is ideal and it's even more significant on a house being renovated because of the need for space for storing or using your tools, materials, &/or equipment.  

The Fire House (Before) had originally been a 1100 square foot, three bedroom, one bath ranch.  Previous owners had transformed it into 1800 sf when they added a master suite on the back and transformed the attached one car garage into extra living space. 

  

Before.  The first pic. of the Carport/Stor.Bldg.
Not much to look at, but something I was glad to have.

When I took ownership there was a structure in the back that was a carport with a storage area.  This detached building had room to park one vehicle and an enclosed area perfect for a mower, lawn tools, yard games/toys, stuff for the beach, etc...the sort of things people pack into a garage.  It was valuable space and I was thankful to have it. 

When I finished the renovation of The Fire House (After), I decided to make some adjustments and turned the carport/storage building into a two car garage.  I framed up the walls and the opening for a large garage door then salvaged siding from the storage area.  (I made the original siding work without buying more because vinyl fades a little over time and I wanted everything to match.  Reworking what I had was a little tricky, but it was possible and I was glad to be able to make it work.) 

Once the walls were framed up, I started to prep for the 350 square foot concrete slab.  (This is where I was on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.)  

I like finishing concrete.  I learned to do this type of work during my summer breaks from college when I worked construction building glass and steel water tanks throughout the Mid-Atlantic States (Penn., WV, Maryland, Va., Ohio).  Finishing the concrete on the DG was fun, but on that day I decided that finishing 350 sq.ft./6 cubic yards by myself is my limit.  It turned out well, but that much solo wore me out and it almost got away from me.  If there's one thing you don't want to get away from you, it's concrete.  Once it's set that's it.  Fortunately, I kept control and things turned out just as I had planned...until Mother Nature had her say and my detached garage burned back down to my pretty slab of concrete.  

   

After. 
A few months later, the oak behind it got struck by lightening. 
It burned down before I got a picture with the 7' x 16' garage door.

Fire #2 at The Fire House

Subdividing the Bungalow and the Duplex

The Bungalow was a Pig's Ear.  It was the worst house on the street.  In as much as I believed the home and the detached garage (see The Detached Garage at the Bungalow) could be reconstructed dramatically, I also felt certain that the overall property had potential to be more as well.  With the Bungalow I acquired a rental house with two apartments (the Duplex) and from the moment I agreed to the deal I had intentions of legally subdividing the land and creating two separate properties.

The Bungalow and the Duplex were in Charleston, SC.  Charleston is one of the country's oldest cities and it has wholeheartedly embraced it's rich history and distinct architecture.  There is nothing historical or architecturally significant about the Bungalow (and it's detached garage) or the Duplex, but since they're located within the city's jurisdiction, I had to follow the same procedures (through the city's Dept. of Planning, Preservation, and Sustainability,  the Subdivision Review Committee, and the Board of Architectural Review) as the classic antebellum homes on the city's peninsula that were built centuries ago when Charleston was one of the wealthiest cities in the nation. 

The city's process was methodical, systematic, and routine and even though I was not resurrecting historic buildings in the carriage tour districts, the folks at the City of Charleston could not have been more supportive of my plans.  They helped me very thoughtfully with all the photo and drawing submissions (and revisions) that were required and patiently answered my steady stream of questions while they walked me through the reviews, appeals, and meetings that are part of a property subdivision in our historic city.  

In the end, the people working on behalf of the city were instrumental in helping me transform one of the worst properties in the neighborhood into two that we were very proud of. 

View from the back of the property before.  The Bungalow (left) and the Duplex (right).

After - The fence that denotes the new property line will one day be covered with ivy.

See related post The Picture Window at the Bungalow

Step 4: Clean Up the Property

Looking back on my renovation career, I can now see how being unorthodox has worked for me. Cleaning up the property is an example; most of the time, I’ve done this step before I’ve actually owned the property. That’s atypical. I get it. But so is buying houses that other people see as tear-downs. There is opportunity in being unconventional.

Like taking pictures before signing the closing documents, cleaning up the property right after taking pictures has been just another small effort to solidify my deal. It goes back to my apprehension about someone coming in and derailing my pact, convincing the sellers to make an arrangement with them rather than me.

Before

        

        The signed agreement is great, and getting permission to take pictures and video is a good sign that I’m not wasting their time. Yet, picking up trash and yard debris before I mow the overgrown grass is an even bigger demonstration that we have a deal and I intend to become the owner like I promised. Still though, like trying to get the phone number off a lost dog’s collar, I’ve been mindful to be slow and sweet so as to not scare off the sellers.

Moving ahead to Step 4 is a subtle way to let the owners know that I expect them to do their part, without coming out and saying as much. The last thing I want to do is mess things up by being pushy. I’m aware that it’s natural for people to be leery of outsiders, and in most of my closings, I’ve  been the mysterious stranger who wants to buy their super crappy house. They may initially wonder if it’s a con or some sort of scam.   

After Day One - A big step in the right direction.
I didn't own the property for a couple more weeks.

       If the owners shut me down when I ask them for permission to do Steps 3 and 4, that’s a red flag, and I know there’s something brewing that needs addressed.

Once I complete Step 4, it’s even harder for someone to renege on our deal after a relative, neighbor, or friend from church says, “I heard you’re selling your house. Do you even know that guy? I’ll match his offer.”

It's true that I’m investing time and money on the property by cleaning it up, and this will end up being a waste if we don’t go to closing. But gas for the lawn mower is minimal, and it’s never taken me more than a day to clean up a prospective site; I’m talking less than ten bucks for fuel and eight hours of labor. In this light, it’s a minor gamble but a way of me gaining assurance while also locking in my sellers a bit more. To me, starting early serves a purpose and is worth the tiny risk.

Completion

 

          The second reason to clean up the property after taking pictures and video is that you want to make it obvious that things have changed; that someone cares enough to mow and pick up trash and natural debris. Without any formal announcement, neighbors will begin to look out for you and kids will stop throwing rocks at the windows. Also, if teenagers have been hanging around late at night, they'll likely think twice and find somewhere else to listen to music and rebel. And if people have been casually throwing stuff out the window when they drive by, believe it or not they'll show some respect for a house with mowed grass and be more inclined to get rid of their garbage somewhere else.

And lastly, spiffing up the outside will make you feel better when you pull up to start working. 

Jump to Step 6: Secure the Property

   

The Detached Garage at the Bungalow

Everyone who’s ever gone through a renovation project knows that you need space to operate.  I’m talking about a garage, carport, barn, shed, or basement.  Now with minimal thought you probably understand what I’m getting at: you need a place for supplies, tools, material, and equipment to keep them secure (so they don't walk off) and protected from the weather.  In addition to that you want to keep your environment somewhat organized and who wants to waste a bunch of time moving things around.  The value of this type of extra space on a renovation project may be immeasurable.  If you’re renovating a home and you don’t have this type of area to utilize, you’ll wish countless times that you had it.  Furthermore, if you do have this extra square footage to make use of, you’ll probably take it for granted.  I’ve learned this lesson the hard way and the Detached Garage at the Bungalow exemplifies how my approach has shifted slightly over the years.  For the reasons described above, I put this sub-project at the top of my list and at the front of my schedule before everything else. 

Before - The roof leaked badly and the place was jammed full of junk.   

Let me say that it’s easy to demo an old building and start over from scratch.  However, it can also be wasteful (haste makes waste).   In rebuilding the Detached Garage at the Bungalow, I wanted to save and reuse what had value and rid the property of what was not useful or simply beyond repair.  This is not all about saving trees and doing what's best for the environment.  Although that's really important, there's practical wisdom behind this approach (which I'll write about in better detail another time).  Anyway, what I started with was, in essence, a crudely built pole barn that sloped slightly from front to back.  I took everything down to the concrete slab and the nine wooden posts that made up the most integral part of the framing system.  From there I rebuilt it to something useful and of value.    

During - It was a great little project... like working inside even though I was outside.

I did all the work myself because I could, I wanted to, and I knew I’d really enjoy taking it on and knocking it all out.  The framing, roofing, fiber cement siding, vinyl soffitt, painting - that's all me.  However, I did pay someone to install the garage doors.  When I look back and remember this little sub-project, the thing I’ll remember most is the site where I was working because for me it was idyllic.  I wasn’t on the beach, next to a peaceful lake, or on the top of a mountain, but I was tucked back behind The Bungalow in a densely populated neighborhood in our city engulfed in nature.  I was surrounded by people, traffic, and the busy world but alone in a setting that was dominated by grand trees, colorful birds, and active squirrels.  And because of the canopy of trees forty or fifty feet overhead it felt like I was working inside even though I was outdoors.  It was great and I totally loved it. 

After - I made good use of this 500+ sqft. area from the beginning of the project to the end.

So, if you’re a home renovator and you have room to work from, appreciate it.  If you’re in the market for a project house, keep the need for spare space in mind from the start.  And, as always, don’t be too quick to pass up on those Pig’s Ears you come across.  Look at the pictures of the Detached Garage.  This thing was a wreck.  But after I was finished… 

The Cottage

A realtor was the first to refer to this little house as The Cottage and this tag appealed to me immediately. 

The Cottage - Before

The Cottage - After

This run-down home had been abandoned by the family that owned it and although it had great potential, many had opted not to buy it.  Because no one else wanted it, The Cottage was the perfect project for me.  After I bought it, I got right to work; I moved every interior door, every window, relocated and rebuilt the stairs, demoed the old front porch and built new ones (at relocated front and back doors), expanded the second floor, added a half bathroom, moved the kitchen, moved all the interior walls (except one that was critical structurally), and lowered the floor downstairs to establish 8’ high ceilings (in lieu of the 6’ 4” headroom I’d inherited). 

I moved into the The Cottage after I sold and moved out of The Fire House.  I finished it while I lived there and then designed and built a new home on a vacant, adjoining lot that had been part of the original deal to buy The Cottage. After I sold it, I moved into the new house before I took on the next project; a home torn up by Hurricane Hugo that we call The Hurricane House.             

The Fire House - Before

The Fire House was vacant, yet For Sale when I saw it for the first time.  There was trash and abandoned children’s toys throughout the overgrown corner lot and a red tag on the front door that officially labeled it as condemned.  There was a charred hole in the roof over the laundry room as clear evidence of the fire that had caused the home’s demise and more than one window had been broken, likely by rocks thrown by kids in the neighborhood.  When co-workers learned of my plans to purchase and renovate the house, they tried to persuade me to reconsider.  It was the ugliest home on the street and people just had a tough time getting a handle on where I'd start and found it difficult (if not impossible) to imagine the place in livable condition. However, I saw a forgotten brick home with potential that would be transformed into an amazing place to live when I was finished.

I borrowed money to buy and renovate the Fire House.  My agreement with the bank included a twelve month time limit to complete the renovations and receive my Certificate of Occupancy from the local Building Officials.  More than one person advised me that I’d be unable to obtain my CO in that amount of time because I was doing so much of the work myself while working my full time job that occupied the majority of my time Monday through Friday and portions of my Saturdays.  In addition, I was peppered with warnings about the smoke smell that existed in the house as quite a few folks thought it was there to stay. 

I grew up in the Midwest and had spent plenty of time with my sleeves rolled up shoveling manure, baling hay, and detasseling corn.  In addition to that I'd also had a lot of fun on our small farm building tree houses and hay forts.  For me, work, building, and fun had been rolled into one for much of my life.  I heard what people said when I started to work on the run-down house, but didn’t really understand why they were so full of doubts.  I felt confident that the Fire House would look, feel, and be a real gem when I was done.  I didn’t sleep very well the night before my first day of work, but it wasn’t nerves making me toss and turn in my bed, I was simply too excited to sleep well.   

The Back of the Fire House where the damage was the most extensive.

The Front Corner of the Fire House

The Kitchen, next to the Laundry Room

The Back Inside Corner of the Fire House.  The section to the left of the bay window was a previous addition that added a Master Suite which turned the 3 bedroom, 1bath Ranch into a 4 bdrm., 2 ba. home.

Jump to The Fire House - During

Jump to The Fire House - After