# Stone Veneer Dry Stack over Brick



## Rotate (Jun 2, 2011)

I am going to remodel the face of our fire place by dry stacking some type of natural Stone Veneer. I am hoping to do this with out removing the brick that is already there, stacking the stone on top instead.

I have been debating on what substrate to attach the stone to. I am leaning towards adding durock on top of some furring strips ( or maybe durock directly screwed in to the brick ), and the attaching the stone to the durock with type S mortar. 

Anyone see any problems with this?

I am planning to take the bricks that make up the mantle out and put in a wood mantle in instead. 

As a matter of opinion..

Do you think I should bring the stone all the way up to the ceiling? I am thinking of only refacing the current brick but am unsure if it would look to weird. We have a large open living room and 12 foot ceilings. To do this I would need to build out a frame to put the stone on.

I attached a pick of the current situation.

Thanks All!


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## OtherHand (Oct 29, 2008)

I did something similar and it worked well. I covered my brick with Durock (It's non-combustible versus plain old drywall). I laid down a thin coat of thinset on the bricks, then screwed the sheets onto the bricks with expanding anchors. Sort of a belt and suspenders approach, but I know it's not going anywhere. I laid down a granite slab I had fabricated for the hearth piece, and another granite slab for the mantel.

The Durock made attaching the stone facade a breeze. I wanted to use a drystack sort of facade, but couldn't find anything I liked or didn't look man-made. I finally found some nice split face real stone facade composed of linear strips glued into 6" x 24" interlocking tiles at Home Depot. It ran about $22 per square foot.

As to whether to take the facade to the ceiling, it's personal preference. I had a low ceiling, so chose to leave it at the mantel and not go all the way up. I think if the fireplace is by itself on a large wall, taking the treatment to the ceiling looks really nice. But since yours is between two large windows, I think the windows might compete with that look. In your case, I'd be inclined to not go to the ceiling.


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## Rotate (Jun 2, 2011)

Thanks for the info. Any pics of the finished product? Were you able to trim the stone tiles you bought to fit?

I am definetely using durock as the base and am headed to look at stone later this afternoon. I am hoping to have the cement board up by this evening. 

I like your opinion on the fireplace possibly competing with the windows, and now that I sit back and look at it I agree.


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## OtherHand (Oct 29, 2008)

No pics, sorry. I used a cheap ($70) wet tile saw from Lowes or Home Depot to do my stone trimming. The stones were of varying thicknesses, maybe from 3/8" to 3/4" but the stupid little saw did just fine. I did swap out the cheap blade that came with it with a decent wet masonry blade. Everyone should have one of these cheap tile saws. They do surprisingly well.


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## kmadison (Nov 24, 2011)

I'm about to begin a similar refacing. In fact my fireplace looks almost identical to your original. Can you tell me what you used to remove the top mantle courses of brick and how easy or difficult it might have been. Any advice is welcomed.


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## Rotate (Jun 2, 2011)

kmadison said:


> I'm about to begin a similar refacing. In fact my fireplace looks almost identical to your original. Can you tell me what you used to remove the top mantle courses of brick and how easy or difficult it might have been. Any advice is welcomed.


 

I used a heavy hammer and chisel to knock them loose. It was very easy (~10 minutes)

It took longer to clean up the mess than it did to make it!

I am about 1/2 way through this project, With any luck I will be laying the stone down this weekend. 

We opted to get rid of the top 2 layers of brick and will be mounting a wider wooden mantle instead. The hearth is going to be a large peice of stained concrete from a local mason


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## Rotate (Jun 2, 2011)

Change of plans, after dealing with some questionable sections of brick I think it is better I take all of it out. Its a bummer because the only concrete board I had left to put up were the corners, but I've learned this lesson before. 
The finished product is only as good as the base it sits on. In this case, I would hate to end up with a poorly fastened substrate before laying down the stone.

I am going to start from the studs and frame it myself. 

Who likes easy projects anyway?:thumbsup:


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## Rotate (Jun 2, 2011)

Here are some of the progress pics. I am currently building a custom mantel shelf to go above the stone. I also added an outlet while the drywall was off and gave the insides a fresh coat of black high heat paint, it turned out great.


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