Q. I am getting ready to build an addition and need to match the brick on my home. The house is only 12 years old, and the original brick had a sand finish. We are told the brick is no longer avail… ...

Matching brick is a visual interpretation; it has to look the same, not necessarily be the same. The most direct approach to matching your brick is to go back to the original manufacturer.

You may not have ever given much thought to how bricklayer’s mortar is made. Standard mortar is a combination of three ingredients: sand; powdered Portland cement, lime and some other ingredients; and ...

Q: I need to repair the mortar joints on my older brick home that was built in the late 1800s.I’ve seen some horrible workmanship where the mortar doesn’t match at all, and I want to avoid ...

If you run into difficulty finding the exact brick to match what you have, there is an option you might not have thought of: You can harvest enough bricks from a face of the garden wall that’s ...

Dear James: We have a brick house and the mortar between the bricks has fallen out in spots. It looks terrible. What is the best method to repair this and how can I get new mortar to look like the ...

The person who repointed this brick at the old sardine factory in Bass Harbor, Maine, ruined it. He was supposed to match the white hydrated lime and use the correct sand.

You mix some up, lay a few bricks, and let them sit for a month. At the end of the wait period you do a light acid wash on the mortar to replicate what takes Mother Nature 30 years to accomplish.