Hi everyone
It's been a while, I skipped a couple of weeks to get things going on our project!
Last time I wrote we had finished 3 slices of the roof. In the meantime, we finished the 4 next ones and completed the roof.
Eventually we were able to do a complete layer in one day, the second one on top the following day, and move the wooden structure the third day.
We held off laying the last slice to finish the front wall (and be eventually able to attach the ceiling to it), making a door lintel out of cinderblocks and reinforced concrete.
The suspense was high whether we would have enough bricks to finish the project and it turned out we had just 3 extra at the end!
One of the bricks revealed a handwritten signature which turns out to mean "Ludwig Herman". We are still investigating who and when :)
Next, we will spend many hours cleaning the grout from the inside to free the bricks and make nice regular joints. Then we will insulate the outside with a pond liner and cover the root cellar under a thick layer of dirt.
See you soon!
Dunno if you're German or Austrian or something, but in Vienna there is a Ziegelmuseum whose curator studies the history of bricks, how they were made and used and whatnot. They have a long list of brick makers in Austria, when they were active and so on.
If you're in another country, they could maybe help get you in contact with a historian local to you.
Could help you learn more about your mystery brick.
I'm in Germany yes, that's a good idea, thank you. The person who sold us the bricks took them out of a building in a village near Karlsruhe, he might know more about the story of that place, we definitely plan on sending him pictures of our construction and we shall ask if he knows more.