Reclaimed bricks with odd dimensions had me stuck... sorting by length fixed everything.

I got a bunch of old bricks for a patio... every single one was a different length. My first lay looked crooked and I almost gave up... forcing them to fit just made gaps worse. Then it hit me... I should group them by size. I measured each brick and made piles: long, medium, short. Using the longest for the edges gave a straight guide... the shorter ones filled the center with adjusted mortar joints. Now the patio looks even and the size variation adds character... like it was meant to be. I won't skip this step again... it saved the whole project. Anyone else have tricks for mixed bricks?

3 comments

3 Comments

terryk285d ago

My neighbor's fence collapse left me with a heap of mismatched bricks. Sorting them into size groups was the only thing that made the path work. It’s a tedious step, but it turns chaos into order.

mason_price5d ago

Getting those bricks sorted by size really does make all the difference. I've had to do this before with old pavers from a demo project. It's a pain, I mean, but grouping them lets you see what you have to work with. If you don't sort, you end up with gaps and uneven lines that look messy. Lay them out in piles first, then start from one corner and build out. Takes time, but the path comes together solid and straight in the end.

wades245d ago

Chaos has its own beauty sometimes.