How to Install a Bluestone Landing on a Front Entry

In this video, This Old House landscape contractor Roger Cook upgrades an old brick with bluestone slabs.

Steps:

1. Use a brick chisel and 3-pound sledgehammer to loosen the old flagstone and mortar from the landing.

2. Cut down into the existing concrete with an electric rotary hammer fitted with a chisel bit. Finished height of the concrete must be 2 inches below the surrounding brick.

3. Clear away all the chipped-up concrete debris with a shovel and stiff-bristle brush.

4. Scrub the concrete’s surface clean with a wet sponge.

5. Remove any loose bricks from the landing.

6. Pour a bag of mortar into a wheelbarrow, add water and mix well with a shovel.

7. Brush bonding agent onto the underside of each bluestone slab.

8. Shovel some mortar onto the concrete landing, then spread it level with a pointed trowel.

9. Set the bluestone slab into place, then use a rubber mallet to tap it down even with the brick border.

10. Repeat Steps 8 and 9 to set the remaining bluestone slabs.

11. Mix up a new batch of mortar, only this time pour a little latex additive into the water.

12. Use two pointed trowels to pack the latex-fortified mortar into the joints around and in between the bluestone slabs.

13. Replace any bricks removed earlier using the same mortar.

14. Smooth and tool the mortar joints using a ½-inch jointing tool.

15. Clean off the bluestone and bricks with a wet sponge, making sure you don’t disturb the tooled mortar joints.

Tools