If I could wave a magic wand and make any change to my house, one thing near the top of the list would be to have a nice, new rear deck that ran the length of the building. But since I’m not going to drop thousands into a deck that I’ll only use for a few years until I sell the place, I decided I could just make some cosmetic changes that might improve the look and utility of the surrounding area.
This was the old landing at the steps to the deck. I thought it would look a little nicer if I just assembled a new landing area that blended in with the existing brick barrier, so I went to Old House Salvage last year and bought a couple hundred used bricks.
The first step was to clean and flatten the area. Once the spot is prepped, you make a sand bed for the bricks:
Next, you lay out the bricks. It takes a lot more than you’d think the space would require. I used about 160 here:
I haven’t been too pleased with the aggregate we used to fill the joints in the brick walkway between our garden beds. Every time I sweep or blow off the area, the aggregate erodes a little and my yard gets peppered with tiny white pebbles. So I decided to fill the spaces between these bricks with a sand-based concrete mix. It’s really heavy and difficult to sweep, but it acts as a permanent grout/mortar when you hose it off at the end of the project. I had to take off my shoes and start pushing it into the cracks with my feet and hands:
Here’s what it looked like after I hosed it off. I think it matches the existing brick barrier pretty well.
It’s not perfect, but it sure looks better than it did before. And at 40¢ a piece, the bricks only cost about $80. Add a couple of bags of concrete mix and some sand, and you have an impactful project that only cost about $100. Not a bad investment.
Similar Posts
3 Comments
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
- Blog Carnival - A Carnival of Everything Home | My DIY Home Tips - [...] presents Brick Landing posted at Chad [...]
Leave a Reply
As an experienced marketer and an avid social media user, I keep a hobby blog. It mostly exists as a public scrapbook for my out-of-state family. Feel free to take a look around and see what you like.
Thanks for the nice post. I always like to bookmark construction or concrete related posts like this one.
In MY view, with reference to these photographs:
It is suggested that the “mason” who created this
should, in future, thoroughly sponge off all brick after laying. Sponge them lightly with a damp (and not entirely wet) mason’s sponge. These sponges have a rough side for getting rid of residual cement… and a fine side for wiping brick faces entirely clean. One
must do this in an extremely gentle way.
Wipe over and over with very gentle pressure so as not to dislodge the bricks from their mortar…. Wipe until all the cement on faces is entirely gone. It is too late to undo the mortar stains and traces on this job.
Even muriatic acid will not clean these bricks now.
One thing more: the joints are FAR too wide. Use a mason’s brick spacer for professional joints…from 1/8 to 1/4 or more…. but never gaps like these. Joints are meant to be exactly that…joints between bricks. Not a substitution for brick itself!
George Haling
Haling & Buddy
Fine Art Masons
brick.
And, finally, the rows of bricks on the floor are crooked
lines. Use a 2×4 to make straight lines. If a “rustic” look is intended, this doesn’t make the grade: it just looks like a rather sloppy job.
T t
George, I appreciate your contribution. I must not have explained myself very well in the tutorial above. This was not an attempt to perfect the art of bricklaying. It was attempt to mimic the look and structure of the existing wall, which was not built by a “mason” in the first place.
I couldn’t close some of those gaps you complain about without destroying the footing beneath the existing wall. All in all, it looks pretty seamless with the old design. If I wanted perfection, I would have ripped the whole thing out and started over. But I didn’t want perfection; I wanted to gloss over some of the uglier aspects of my 60+ year old house without breaking the bank. When you’re on a limited budget, you have to pick and choose your battles. I’m sure you understand.
I’ve already made major investments in the kitchen, bathroom, and electrical system throughout the house. The landing below the back steps of my outdated porch aren’t really at the top of my investment list, and it’s not going to pay a dividend anyway. You’re right that it looks a little sloppy, but at least it’s a uniform sloppiness that blends with the existing sloppy structure, and hopefully it fades into the background of my back yard.
But I am puzzled by your assertion that the bricks look unclean? I salvaged these from a scrapyard. I can assure you that I cleaned them thoroughly throughout the process. If you’re seeing something that looks off, I’m wondering what I could have done differently?
Thanks for stopping by, and best of luck!