Case 1. Remodeling a brick fireplace.
 An artist purchased an older home with a painted brick fireplace that she didn't like.
The remodeling solution was to cover the painted brick with manufactured stone –
Cobblestone in Rustic Brown. The brick was first covered with expanded metal lath, purchased from the local Home Depot store. To attach the lath, ¼ inch holes were drilled into the mortar joints using a hammer drill, and anchor fasteners bought from Hilti were placed into each hole and secured by driving the nail into the anchor bracket. The entire surface was then given a mortar scratch coat and the stones were applied, leaving finger width joints between them. Hearth stones (20” by 20”) were used on the raised hearth. Corner stones were cut and fitted up both sides of the fireplace and around the opening of the firebox. The home owner opted not to install a mantle, as she wanted to put up some pictures instead. To fill in the joints, mortar was colored with iron oxide pigment to a dark chocolate brown and squeezed between the stones using a mortar bag. After letting the joints firm up a bit (takes an hour or two), the joints were raked down and brushed, resulting in the installation shown.
 Case
2. Dormer
This is a great case study to show the versatility of manufactured
stone. This dormer didn't need any extra structural support.
With natural stone, you can't build a stone dormer without extensive framing to handle the transfer of the extra weight down to the footings. Manufactured stone allows us to do this, because the extra weight is only about 10 pounds per square foot.
|
