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.

Pro Tip: Bluestone slabs are shipped standing on edge on special pallets rather than stacked flat. As explained during a This Old House bluestone delivery, “If you lay them flat in transit, there’s a chance they could hit each other and crack.” Damaged slabs mean wasted money, so confirm your supplier uses proper edge-stacked pallets before delivery.

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.

When chiseling out the old flagstone, work from the outside in. As Roger Cook explains in the project, you don’t want to loosen the surrounding brick border. “We’ve already got a few that are loose and I can fix those, but I don’t want you creating any more.”

Pro Tip: Roger Cook advises mixing the mortar on the thick side: “I don’t want it too wet because if we do the bluestone is just gonna settle down.” A stiffer mix gives you more control when setting heavy bluestone slabs to the correct height.

Tools