The cornice was repaired and re-attached to the masonry. It was time to call the mason back to finish the brick work on the front parapet.
The parapet repair behind the cornice was all done using common brick. From the cornice tie-in upwards, we switched to Roman face brick. The same brick that was used below on the front façade. Lucky for us, there is one company left in the Midwest (the Belden Brick Company), that still manufactures Roman face brick.
But we didn’t just use Roman face brick. To keep with the architecture of the facade below, we integrated graystone into the front parapet. This is the graystone that I salvaged a few years back from buildings that were torn down nearby.
The front parapet has a depth of three wythes. We rebuilt the wythe facing the street with graystone and Roman brick. The other two wythes behind it were invisible. Here we used regular common bricks again.
To render the common brick stable, we used header courses to tie the wythes together. To connect the street-facing wythe – the graystone and Roman brick – I used ties to connect the graystone pieces to the common brick behind.
Getting the cornice and front parapet repair out of the way was a major milestone. I could now focus on raising the parapets along the east and west sides in preparation for the re-roofing.
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This is really amazing. I love that you kept the original copper cornice and had it repaired. Plus the re-use of the limestone decorations is excellent. Kudos! I continue to read your blog in earnest and dream about doing the same to my brick two-flat one day. Looking forward to seeing how the roof is built. Keep up the good work.