How to Lay a Brick Border (Lay a Brick Roll lock)

Our patio porch has been an ongoing project for several years. In this post, we will share how we laid a brick border (brick roll lock) around the edge of our patio porch. A brick roll lock is a series of bricks laid on their face with their ends visible.

Purpose of laying a brick border (roll lock)

We wanted the brick to frame what would become our porch tile floor and knew it was best to install the brick edging (roll lock) prior to installing the tile.

This was a challenging project for us because we had not done much brickwork until this project. However, we wanted to save money and knew we could do this if we took our time. We purchased brick that was already installed over our basement windows.

Here are the steps we took: 

We laid out the bricks to get a feel for how many we would need.

Mixing Mortar

We mixed sand and mortar.

And then added water and stirred with a hoe.

We made a mortar base using a trowel. This was Neal’s job.

Laying Brick

We “buttered” each brick allowing some of the mortar to seep into each hole in the brick. This was my job.

Neal placed the brick adjacent to the previous brick.

Checking Levelness

We checked to be sure they were level as we laid each brick.

We also used a string as our guide – – to be sure the row of brick was level as we went.

Our sweet Daisy decided to eat some of the sand.

Double Checking our Height

After laying the brick, we planned to install the tile. Hence, we used one of the actual tiles over a thin board (to compensate for the thin set to adhere to the tile) to account for the thickness. This allowed us to double-check the accuracy of our brick roll lock height.

Cutting Bricks

Because the porch floor gradually sloped (to allow rainwater to run off), we had to cut some of the bricks on the two sides of the porch to make them the right height.

We rented a brick saw from Home Depot.

Daisy was inspecting our progress.

Cutting Bricks for Corners

Here is how we did the corners. We cut the end and side out of one brick.

Then we cut the flat side off of another brick.

We mortared in the first corner piece.

After it dried, we mortared in the flat piece.

Cutting Bricks Around Columns

We also had to cut the ends off of a few bricks around some of the columns.

Here is the front side.

Brushing

After about an hour or two (when the mortar started drying), we brushed each joint to give it a smoother finish.

And then we rested.

The Final Result!

Here is the final result.

Now that our brick edging (roll lock) has been installed, our next step was installing tile on our porch floor.

To see more posts about our porch transformation, check out some of these links:

• How We Built Our Outdoor Fireplace
• Installing Rustic Barn Wood on our Porch Ceiling
• Building an Apron and Wrapping Our Porch Columns
• Installing Simulated Stone on Our Porch

To see how we TOTALLY transformed our porch, click HERE.

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