[nhertel]

Good afternoon, I will be building a small brick wall in my front yard and need to find a way to make the mortar match the existing brick veneer of the house. This new wall will be 27" high and 12' long, two bricks wide. It is non-load-bearing, sits on a 4" poured concrete footing (in Georgia where there is no frost line), and it won't be retaining any soil; it's purely decorative and the foundation is omre than sufficient. I don't want it to crack and fall apart, but its about a simple a project as brick gets.

Anyway, the mortar on my 40-year-old house is rather white or sandy-colored and miles away from the gray test mix I made of the mortar I bought (one part Quikrete type N masonry cement to 3 parts general purpose sand). Can I add powdered lime to make the mix whiter? Will increasing the sand content to a 4:1 or 5:1 mix cause huge adverse effects on a small, decorative wall?

Thanks for any advice!!

 

[Tscarborough]

Lime will make it lighter, but you should probably use white cement.

 

[yesitsconcrete]

scar's right as usual :thumbup: most masonary supply yards around atl have white cement,,, i like usa block on 41 just up from the big chicken even tho home depot owns it :furious: but at least they kept the same guys :yes: ( so far everyone speaks english yet ),,, they'll also have white sand !

its FAR easier to color white mortar than try to whiten the yellow mortar so prevalent in our area ( e cobb )