That time I tried to lay a herringbone pattern on a wall and nearly threw my trowel across the yard

This was about 3 months ago, I was doing a small garden wall for a lady in Decatur. She wanted a herringbone pattern, looked so simple in the picture she showed me. Man, I spent 2 hours just getting the first two rows straight. Kept having to pull bricks and respread mortar. Finally got it going after I marked a center line and used a story pole but my wrists were killing me by lunch. Has anyone else had a pattern fight back like that or am I just slow?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_holly27d ago

Wait, are we really acting like a brick pattern is a LIFE lesson now @ryan369?

alice8925d ago

That's the thing with anything worth doing right, the picture never shows the two hours of cussing it took to get there.

ryan36927d ago

Honestly, the part about the picture making it look simple hits hard. I've noticed that pattern with a lot of stuff in life - you see a final product online or in a magazine and think it's easy, but the reality is always way more messy and frustrating. It's like that with cooking too, you see a perfect lasagna picture and then yours looks like a train wreck. You got it figured out with the center line though, that's the main thing. Ngl, I think most people would've given up way sooner than you did.

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