Dick Brick

A major decision we had to make while building was what color brick we wanted to use. One main reason we chose brick is because it is maintenance free. Expensive to start with but no yearly staining, painting, or cleaning. We knew exactly what we wanted it to look like. Once while driving out in the country we saw a ranch home with brick that Rhett & I both liked very much. The crazies that we are--we stopped took pictures of it and knocked on the door. We spoke with the people that lived there about where the brick was purchased. Richard's Brick in Waterloo or as I like to call it Dick Brick. The man that we dealt with was not the greatest. (I'm trying to be kind here people) I will not use any choice words but if we had to do it again I would definitely choose a different company. I went to Mid West Brick & Block in Waterloo as well and the man was so so nice. He even drove me around looking at houses trying to find something similar to what we liked. They just did not have the exact color we wanted to use so we went with the other company. You live & you learn. The house we liked started out with a dark chocolate brown mortar and over the years it faded to a light pinkish tint. We decided to just start with the pink mortar. Yes we have pink mortar. It sounds crazy but I personally like the way it looks. This is the sample from Richard's Brick building. It is incredibly hard to visualize what a whole house is going to look like when looking at something this small.

This is jumping way ahead of the time frame but since I'm already on the brick subject. The guys started bricking in the last couple weeks of December and weren't finished until the end of February. I remember we had snow so that put a hindrance on things for a while. Recently Rhett asked me if I thought we could change our brick because he really doesn't like it. Tough luck honey. I know it didn't turn out exactly how we imagined it but it is what it is. We both preferred  the way it looked when the mortar was wet so maybe we should have went with the chocolate color.

We only did the brick on 3 sides because doing the backside of the house was way too expensive. It is siding and looks just fine.

It looks way different back behind there now. Now we have a deck, concrete, & a lake. I will talk about all of it another day though.


Since it is December this is what our house should look like now!!! This crazy southern IL weather is driving my husband bonkers. He wants it to snow! Please SNOW GODS bring it to us!!