To put up the stone veneer over our brick wall, its recommended to put a scratch coat up first.  So after putting up the metal lathe, I’ve covered it all in a mixture of 1 part Type N Masonry Cement to 1 part All-purpose Sand.  Mixing up the cement and applying it was pretty tiring so I did it in two separate coats (one of which is still wet in the picture).  I was happy to see that it dried well and is securely fastened to the wall with no voids.  I was a bit concerned that I wouldn’t be able to get enough mortar through the lathe to fill the gabs in the brick.

I also learned  that I apparently hung the metal lathe in the wrong direction, its supposed to be put up horizontally, and in a particular direction so that it holds the mortar better.  Fortunately this didn’t seem to cause any problems.  To help the mortar adhere to the scratch coat you are supposed to ‘comb’  (or scratch i suppose) the scratch coat, to allow the mortar to adhere better.  However since I didn’t have cement comb, I just put some grooves in it with the tip of my trowel.

The current fireplace is set in a rather hideous brick wall.  After contemplating it for a long time I’ve decided to leave the brick wall up rather than take it down.  Although the discussion went through many phases, it came down to it not being worth the hassle/cost to dispose of the wall to gain the 3″ of space in the room.  That means we’ll be putting the stone veneer directly on top of the brick.   Eldorado Stone does say that if the brick is in good condition, and clean you could just put the stone on top of it, without any further preparation.   However if the bricks are painted they recommend putting metal lathe and a scratch coat on top first.  Although our brick isn’t painted, it does have soot, and some old mortar (it appears the bricks were reclaimed, or at least made to appear that way) on the front, so as you can see I’m going with the metal lathe.

I’ve used some masonry screws to bolt the lathe into the brick, and trimmed it around the fireplace and the bluestone.   Drilling holes in brick is surprisingly easy, even without a hammerdrill.  Even the carbide tipped masonry bits do get dull rather quickly though, and I’ve gone through a couple already.   I should also point out that you need to be careful to not over torque the screws, as they will break, and your hand will go slamming into the rather sharp metal lathe, which will take a nice gouge out of your knuckle and get blood all over your nice new bluestone.  Not that this happened to me or anything though.