36" Pompeii Build Redux - This Time In CA

[rsandler]

Great looking loaves! What was the bake time?

About 25 minutes. Forgot to immediately set a timer after the first time I checked on them, so not sure the precise time. They were very tasty also!

[rsandler]

Started my decorative arch yesterday. Made L-shaped thin bricks so as to bond to both the firebrick vent arch and the cement board exterior wall. The bricks are from a big stack of old clinker bricks left to us by the previous owner of the house. Apparently all reclaimed from a 100+ year old hotel demolished in nearby Sacramento. I had been thinking of doing similar brick veneer for the base and counter walls (plan for the rest of the enclosure walls is stucco/render), but realized that while "no extra money cost" is a nice feature of that idea, "making ~900 brick cuts" is a bit of a drawback :-P. Now thinking of shelling out for natural or cultured stone veneer from the nearby brick yard.

But anyway, the clinkers make a nice decorative arch, and I think I'm going to continue upward with the bricks to the roofline, as if the whole "chimney" were protruding from the wall.

In other oven news, I got the final sign-off from the city building inspector, so my oven is now fully legal and permitted.

[JRPizza]

I hadn't paid enough attention to your build to notice what you were doing with your door. Would you consider doing some posts on the Show us your Door Thread? It's a good place to capture new innovations.

https://community.fornobravo.com/for...ur-door-thread

[rsandler]

Good point--I think I got the idea from a passing remark in the Show us your Door thread, I should pay it forward and post there.

I think I'm finally done for the season with the oven, though we'll see how the weather and my motivation work out :-P. I put up the rest of my chimney veneer and grouted with mortar over the Thanksgiving week. I pinged a couple of granite countertop fabricators about countertops, but I'm probably going to wait on actually moving forward until spring.