Brickwork

Really, our inspiration was the vision we believed we could achieve. It wasn’t going to be possible to leave them as-they-were.

By replacing the large windows in the living area with triple stackers, the “back” door was rendered completely unnecessary. The “side” door out to the driveway, in our opinion was unnecessary anyway, as well it taking up valuable kitchen wall space inside, and the steps were very intrusive into the driveway, which was quite narrow anyway.

It was more a matter of common sense than design.

When we went through the house and discussed our vision with Mark Smith, of Mark Smith Builders – we relied on his building experience to advise us on what would be possible.

Mark had undertaken many previous renovations that involved changes to brickwork, and was completely confident our changes would be possible.

It would involve Mark removing the doors and frames, before framing up the remaining hole with timber. The exterior of the hole would be covered in the appropriate moisture barrier and temporarily covered with plywood until the bricklayers undertook the job. The framing would be filled with insulation as usual and then gib, before being plastered and painted.

The result would be a seamless transition between old and new.

We set out to find the right bricklayer early in our renovation, so they could scope the job and discuss any special considerations with Mark.

We chose to work with Johnny McAuley and his team from MCA Masonry.

There were a number of reasons we chose to work with MCA:

• Their attention to detail was clear to see in photos of their previous work we viewed
• Johnny’s “can do” attitude. Nothing was a problem. He was keen to do the work, and totally professional in his approach.
• His depth of knowledge and experience was obvious in the way he discussed the various jobs needing doing with us.

Feeling confident, we made a plan. The work could be completed across a few days by a number of guys from his team.

We discussed timings with Mark to ensure the building work would be completed and ready for the bricklayers by specific dates.

The first two days would be spent by the bricklayers bricking up the old entrances. The last day would be spent completing the sills below the new ranch sliders.

The first thing MCA did was remove every second brick vertically, to create a “toothed” edge up the existing brickwork. This would allow the bricklayer to create a strong, seamless join into the new brickwork.

The edges of this remaining brickwork were tidied up. This meant removing all the old mortar around the surfaces that would match up to the new brickwork.

As we were using second hand bricks, the bricks were checked, cleaned and stacked next to the job.

As we were going to paint the exterior, we opted for a less expensive standard dark mortar. If we were not going to paint, we could have opted for a matching white mortar.

MCA proceeded to measure, cut and lay the bricks row by row, using a string line and level to keep everything straight and level.

This was one area of building that we knew relatively little about, so we relied heavily on both our builder Mark, and MCA Masonary’s advice. As we were working with a permanent material as the critical waterproofing cladding, it had to be done properly.

The finish MCA achieved was exceptional. If we weren’t painting the exterior and had opted for white mortar to match the existing, it would have been near impossible to tell where the old and new joined.

The rows were straight as an arrow, and edges of the brickwork a perfect fit up against the new aluminium joinery.

All and all, the entrance door reconfigurations were a real success and we were feeling stoked with the result.