-Soldier courses of bricks should wrap all the way around the house, with as little interruption as possible. The top of the soldier course is customarily at the interior floor level.

-Plan on paying to have your brick pressure washed at the end of the installation if it is either excessively sandy or has excessive amounts mortar stuck to it.

-While the brick mason is doing his job, you should check his work a few times a day to make sure he's installing the bricks where you want them.

-The color of the sand used to mix your mortar will have a large impact on what color your mortar turns out to look like. If you want a light colored mortar, then you may want to consider getting sand that is light colored. That can be hard to find, however. My sources in Atlanta tell me that the orangish-yellowish river sand is the only sand they can get their hands on lately. This results in a mortar that is darker than the mortar samples would suggest.

-Brick masons that I have dealt with have typically charged a certain price per thousand bricks installed. Then, they add extra charges on top of that for brick designs, arches, cleaning the bricks, etc.

-It helps to have your permanent door frame installed when the brick mason is laying the brick so that he can install the brick right up next to the door frame. I mention this because I sometimes like to have a temporary door (and door frame) on my houses so that my nice new door will not get damaged during the construction process.

-You may find a brick that you like and call the manufacturer directly to obtain some of the bricks for your home remodeling project. Alternately, you could call the local brick supply companies, if your manufacturer is out of stock in the line that you are interested in.

-If one brick supplier does not have the quantity of bricks that you are interested in, and you want to obtain more from another brick supplier, just be sure that the bricks were made in the same run. Otherwise, there could be differences in color and texture.

Former builder and instructor of "Save Time and Money in Home Remodeling" cont. ed. course at Emory University