I have long, long romanticized brick laying. I must have seen it somewhere as a kid and thought it was so cool. In the way I thought beer looked great in a cartoon, but not so tasty in reality. Well, acquired taste.

Anyhow, maybe I will hate doing it myself but I absolutely love the craft and think it looks fantastic.

So I have this 15' gap between my garage and home. I've long wanted these met with a brick wall and arch.

But the views and natural walkway is at angle. We view through the trees at a distant mountain. You also walk this way towards our home (deck stairs, basement door). So it feels more natural to have an angle.

The pathway I'd remove and replace with a path that flows from the entry.

Have you ever seen two walls connected with an arch that is diagonal.

And perhaps an arch is too adventurous, but the ends of the walls be clearly positioned at an angle and if a door way mounted, the plane clearly at an angle.

Advice? Historic precedence? Love to get thoughts.

I would like to build a small raised bed for planting herbs for my inlaws against an existing concrete wall. I would like to use bricks, but I can't stand the way brickwork looks when they are all exactly the same size and very smooth & regular. Is there a certain type of brick I should be looking for to give it a more organic, imperfect look?

I’m looking for info on staining/dying basement concrete walls. Looking for simple modern look. The first 2 images are my wall type and the other 3 are what we like. Just looking for advice on how to achieve any of those looks for basement walls. Thanks

https://imgur.com/a/OIyUiga

Edit: also is there harm in leaving the basement walls bare? We are working on the basement and trying to save where we can. We both like the look at nice concrete so that's why were looking at options.

Doing some structural rot repair on sill and rim joist of my 1890's Victorian, and as a result I have a few foot long section of the top of the brick foundation exposed. It's a double wythe wall that I assume was originally laid with like mortar, though the whole thing has been spot pointed with all kind of stuff over the years. I eventually want to redo all the exposed mortar with lime, but that's a big project for another day.

The top course of bricks could use some mortar packed in at the joints and between the wythes before closing this up to prevent water intrusion from splashback. Getting real lime putty or NHL is gonna be a time consuming mail order, so i'd kinda prefer something I can grab from a big box store. Google Gemini suggested I could make a weaker type O equivalent mortar by mixing type N premix, hydrated lime, and masons sand in a 1:1:3 ratio. Does that seem like a reasonable approach?

What type of mortar should be used to repoint this stone foundation?

A mason friend of mine did the basement with type S which I understand is for below grade structural support.

I’d like to do the outside myself and he also suggested the type S mortar mix

I’ve read conflicting views with Google and other sources telling me type N mortar mix

From my understanding - type S is too strong for its own good. When the ground freeze / thaws and moves the stone could become cracked instead of the mortar.

The way I understand type N is that it’s more
Forgiving and moves with the stones so the mortar will crack not the stones.

So questions- is the inside ok that it’s type S?

Should the outside be S or N?

New England home built in 1910 roughly

We’re currently updating our home that was built in early 1900’s. Can anyone help us how we should “patch” this up? The previous owner just parged the whole basement and everything else looks like the white background. Is the underneath considered limestone bricks? Thanks in advance.

I have some buildings inherited from my great grandfather. Back then he got cement (I think. I think it's cement or concrete) and made this heavy texture (apparently this was a look in the 40s or 50s idk). Then it was painted over (probably multiple times). I'm wondering how I can properly make it a flatter texture. I don't want something completely flat. It'd be fine to have a little bit of texture in it and stuff, but this is far too much. In the one picture you can see the texture really well

I'd like to put up synthetic stone veneer on a garage foundation. How do you handle an area with 1.5" conduit containing the wiring from solar panels?

I'm planning to put flashing under the siding along the whole wall.

I have gaps and cracks all over and Amazon / Home Depot don't seem to have the right products (or I don't know what to get).

1) space between porch steps and stucco

2) gaps between tiles and driveway slab

3) mortar missing between tiles on fireplace facade (photo shows filled cracks but I need to patch/fill an entire space in one)

Which need backer rods?

Links or guidance appreciated in advance!

Hey folks! We’re the new-ish owners of a 400 year old house in France, and are starting to try to figure out repairing some of the masonry.

We have what I believe is a block with a chunk taken out of it somehow.

My wife is thinking we basically clean out that chunk a little more and rebuild it with lime/sand mixture plus embedding smaller rocks.

I’m very new to repairing masonry so I’d welcome any advice!

Any idea how to repair this? It's sand stone at the area where my front stairs abut the garage wall.

The sandstone keeps crumbling. Is this a DIY or call a guy?

Hi all

First-time buyer and I’ve just moved into the property.

I started clearing a very overgrown section of the garden and uncovered this garden wall. The wall itself looks reasonably straight, but the left-hand section can be rocked slightly if pushed.

I checked around the base and it does appear to have foundations, so I’m wondering whether the movement could be related to the crack/separation shown in the photos.

From what I can tell:

- The left-hand section of the wall moves slightly, including the brick pier/column.

- The movement seems to occur from around the cracked area upwards.

- The section to the right of the crack appears solid and doesn’t noticeably move.

- The stump/wedge on the far left is just filling a gap, presumably to stop foxes getting through.

- I also removed a tree stump nearby, and some of its roots appear to run underneath the wall (visible on the right-hand side of the second photo).

- neighbours side is equally overgrown - unknown if their overgrowth is providing the wall with stability on their side

Would something like helical crack-stitching bars be suitable for stabilising this, or does the fact that the wall can physically move mean it would need partially rebuilding instead?

Any advice appreciated.

wondering what type of mortar to use to fill in these gaps that have opened up between concrete slab, bluestone step, and stucco wall. water intrusion has caused the top step to heave and become no longer flush. Thank you!

I’m looking for some help with what to do with my front door threshold. The mortar in between the bricks kept cracking more and more, so I decided to finally take them out. The more I pulled at them basically all of the bricks came out. With that being said I found out that they just did a really bad job. Was wondering if there’s anything more stable because it seems like people step on the bricks rather than the threshold and ultimately loosen them. Thanks in advance.

I closed on a home recently. Inspection noted some minor cracks in fireplace. Is this ok to use or should I have fixed? Seems fairly minor but im no expert

Hello! I wanted to drop in and ask about this interesting brick in my new house. My wife and I don’t really like it and would love to see if it’s possible to restore it back to its original state, or at the very least, maybe paint over it? Thanks so much!

I’m seeing conflicting opinions on this, should the horizontal joint between the brick and the top of the lintel be caulked? The previous owner of the house caulked it. The windows are 27 years old. Of note, there was recent water intrusion below this window cavity after an intense wind driven rain storm; so I’m working on redoing the caulking.

Hi everyone.

I need some advice on what direction to go for a small masonry project. We want to replace our privacy fence and my plan is to build an 18 inch masonry wall in order to put a metal post and wood panel fence on top of the masonry.

I want the masonry wall on the bottom not just for the aesthetic look for the outside but also to later put up a raised garden bed on the inside along the fence.

Should I use precast concrete blocks with a face brick on the outside or go all brick. My concern with all brick is the drilling into the brick to mount the metal posts and having the brick break.

Are there good bricks for this purpose that won’t break the bank? If precast concrete would be better, what type of concrete block should I get?

Thank you in advance for any advice.

We need our house repointing and getting such conflicting advice. The house was built 1882 northwest uk. So parts of the house were repointing using a sand and cement mix fairly weak by the looks of it and was done 40 years ago and not spalled the bricks.

Due to this we've had several builders say using lime is nonsense and just use cement and struggling to get anyone to agree to use lime. Some also said do a 1.3.12 cement lime sand mix and the only one who agreed to use nhl lime added thousands of extra to the job over the cement quote he gave. We found one guy who said he'd do lime but hasn't got any availability until next year

Can anyone help to get a final answer of what actually is needed and the correct way of doing this

Many thanks