Somebody, years ago, basically, went through an incredible amount of effort just to make this convincing, from a visual perspective. When you look close, you can see the difference. We show a photograph of the area up close in the next picture below. From the street though, or from a significant distance, it actually tricks the eye and looks like the mortar is almost white and that the brick is a blue color.

Frankly, it doesn’t really make complete sense, but we assume it was just part of an artistic type of project that somebody wanted to do even if it didn’t have a direct kind of financial reward.  You can see below though, just as last week, we showed several photographs, and here we look at it even from a closer zoom level than last week. You can see that the white mortar lines are clearly painted on top of the blue paint. All of this is on top of a brick-and-mortar wall that has been painted so many times that it’s muted some of the traditional typical type of definition between the brick and the mortar.

The next picture below is similar, but it’s actually hard to tell in this particular example whether or not the blue paint came first or whether the white paint came first. And other photographs though it’s very obvious that the white paint came after the blue paint.  Here though, you can see little details that make it look like they even went back after the white paint was applied and applied more of the blue paint.

The next picture below, particularly at the perpend joint, the vertical mortar joint location between the two side by side bricks in the same course, it looks like the blue and white paint was applied in successive alternating coats but interspersed so that a coat of white paint was applied before and or after the blue paint.

At the exposed face of the bricks, in the running bond brick faces, they applied a darker coat but then rolled on or applied a top coat of lighter blue paint. The dark or black paint that likely was applied first creates a visual shadow type look which accentuates a real end or faux texture of the brick.

The next picture shows even more revealing detail because you can see all the way down to the red clay brick. Like many historic buildings here in Washington, DC, this particular building was built with a low temperature kiln fired, red clay brick and a lime mortar. It’s a common brick and therefore has a common joint. These common joints were generally way weaker and softer than the joints of the crest brick, also known as a butter joint.  In most cases the common brick joints need to be pointed on a relatively faster timetable then the butter joints and the butter joints are more complicated to repoint.

In the next picture below, you can see an example where they painted on top of the several layers of paint, even where the substrate layers of old paint are delaminated from the mortar substrate. Obviously much of this mortar is original and not in perfect shape and needs to really be repointed before it’s actually repainted if it even ever is repainted at all. Painting isn’t actually necessary for functional characteristics.

Another view of the same joints from a different section of the same wall follow below.

This coming week, we’re going to look at another building that is actually built with masonry yet it has an elaborate painting on top of the masonry surface to make it look like a different masonry. That’s a theme that runs through both of these buildings even though they look drastically different.  Unlike the building shown the picture below though, the building shown in the pictures above really needs to be repointed thoroughly.

We can Help

Our company focuses on historic restoration more than modern building upkeep, maintenance, and construction, but our company understands both types of construction very well and a full picture well-rounded approach is needed in any niche in the construction industry.  Although we focus on historic restoration, repointing, tuckpointing and historic brick repair, our company also has technical knowledge and competencies in the areas of modern and contemporary construction as well as we become one of the leaders in that area of the market today.  Understanding both historic and modern or contemporary construction is useful because both aspects help understand the challenges and potential solutions for challenges in building science and construction.

We can help with a variety of historic masonry restoration needs and upkeep, from modest tuckpointing and or repointing to complicated and extensive historic masonry restoration. Infinity Design Solutions is a historic restoration specialist contractor specializing in both historic masonry restoration such as tuckpointing our repointing, and brick repair.  If you have questions about the architectural details or facade of your historic building in Washington DC, reach out and say hello and if we can help we’ll be glad to assist you.  You can email us or call us on the telephone at the following link: contact us here.