re: Anyone here install brick pavers in their house?

We did a renovation last year and replaced tile with Old Chicago thin brick in the Kitchen, laundry room, and hallways. It looks amazing, the bricks have great character and we have received plenty of complements. While some compare the ease of installation to tile and claim it is a good DIY project I would not suggest it unless you have a lot of tile/brick experience. Tile is typically one exact shape, size, and color. Bricks (especially reclaimed) are basically a uniform thickness but the colors/shades/markings vary widely from brick to brick. It really takes an experienced eye to lay bricks from multiple packs and blend them together properly. Luckily our guy is a perfectionist and really took a lot of time laying them out and blending them in properly.

A couple of things he mentioned while installing were:

1) Blending: Don't just lay one pack at a time, pull from 3-4 boxes at a time. Make sure to pay attention to both sides of the brick. While tile typically only has 1 side that should face up you can use both sides of the thin brick. The pieces of thin brick that were on the outside of the original brick will have much more character (old grout/colors/markings) than the pieces cut from the middle of the brick. Properly blending everything together is almost an art.

2) Seal the brick two times before adding the grout. This will make it easier to get the grout cleaned off the face of the bricks. Set asside a couple of test bricks that match the predominant colors in the pattern. Apply the sealent to the test bricks before applying to the entire floor. Peoples tastes and every floor in general is different so there is not a set number of coats of sealer that should be applied. Utilize the test bricks to decide how many coats to apply.