What it is
Historic restoration is masonry work on the homes that need it most — pre-1940s brick and stone houses where the original wall is still doing its job and the wrong repair would end that. The distinguishing problem is the mortar: these walls were laid with lime mortar, not Portland cement, and they need lime mortar to keep standing.
When you need it
- A pre-1940s home with deteriorating joints, spalled brick faces, or a previous “repair” in Portland-heavy mortar that’s now causing damage
- A lake estate or Italianate or Queen Anne with chimney, parapet, or facade work pending
- Any wall built with soft-fired brick — Chicago common, salvaged, or hand-pressed
- A home with original lime-washed or lime-stuccoed surfaces
Why lime matters
The brick in a century-old home is softer than the mortar in a hardware-store bag of mix today. Lime mortar — Type O, Type K, sometimes a putty lime by hand-mix — flexes with the wall, breathes moisture out, and gives up before the brick does. Portland-rich mortar (Type S, even modern Type N at the wrong ratio) is harder than the brick. The wall still moves with the seasons; with Portland in the joints, the brick breaks instead of the mortar. One winter of that and you have face spall. Five winters and you have replacement courses.
How we do it
We start with mortar analysis — a sample of the original joint, sent out for binder, sand, and ratio identification when the project warrants it, or read by eye and hand on smaller jobs. We match what we find: lime content, aggregate color and gradation, tooled profile. For replacement brick, we salvage from demolition stock or pull from regional reclaim yards. We never blend a modern face brick into a wall of 1920s common.
Materials and methods
- Hydrated lime and lime putty for binder
- Period-correct sand — graded, washed, and color-matched
- Salvaged brick from regional reclaim — Milwaukee, Chicago, Wisconsin farmsteads
- Original-profile tooling — concave, V, weather-struck, struck-and-cut — by hand
- No chemical cleaners on historic faces. Soft brush, low-pressure water, time.
Historic restoration is slow work. We say so upfront because the alternative is fast work that destroys what makes the home worth keeping.