House Updates - Brick!

Last Thursday, brick started!  Now I must tell yall, I have been nervous about this part for two reasons.

1.  We wanted to do a painted brick home but it isn't allowed in our neighborhood.  So we had to come up with another option.  We spent HOURS on picking the right brick.  Finally, Kevin and I went to our the masonry company that was going to be installing it and picked out what we liked.  The brick we selected is called Port Charlotte and it's darker than you see below.  After asking a million questions, they told us about a technique called the "German Mortar Smear" and that is basically rubbing the white mortar on the brick after it's installed.  It lightens it up even more.  It's different than white washing as this has more coverage if that makes sense.  

2.  I'm being a crazy person about making sure the red clay does not turn our brick orange.  Ever see brick homes with the orange band around the bottom of their house?  Yeah, that's because it does not come off...like at all.  So the masons have to take an abundance of caution to be sure the clay does not splash up during construction and until there is mulch or the site is stabilized.  Usually they use straw to help with this but in our case they are covering the brick with plastic every night and using straw.  Because I'm nuts.  But I'd like our pretty white brick house to stay white!  

Okay so this brick was laid one day prior.  You can see that the mortar still has not dried because it will turn almost white.  

This brick was laid that same day.  

In the below picture you can see what brick they laid the day before and the brick they laid that day.  

These guys are wonderful.  They have been so nice to talk to and are doing a wonderful job.  Ronnie is the head guy and he's just the best.  See him with the sponge?  He is smearing the mortar!

This is when it's really coming together.  It's so crazy that we are basically designing the brick and how it is laid on OUR HOUSE!  Wild!