I've got a picture of an entrance door that is 5 years old and the front door frame is rotted out. I can push my finger through it.

Fix that water infiltration before it's a major renovation.

Michael

I used to live in Albany, New York, & I can remember older brick buildings with limestone sills. They looked great, they seemed to age gracefully. You will have to be the judge of how this feature fits in with your existing architecture.

I think it will look fine. We had more tuckpointers come out today and they recommend only doing the limestone around the french doors in the back. They are also going to do flashing around the doors to make sure that the water cannot get in. I've attached a photo of the back of the house so you get the idea. The limestone will go under eacr of two sets of french doors and under the bank of three windows over each door. The pear tree blocks the identical window and door set on the opposite side of the chimney.

{{!gwi}}

The problem is bad design.

A two-story house with practically no roof overhang exposes the exterior to rain and soaking from top to bottom, and since the back of the house has the most problems, it's safe to assume that's the weather side of the house.

The brickwork between the top of the french doors and the windows above them is completely inadequate. There's no way in the world such a narrow strip of brick could ever work, and the same goes for limestone or any other masonary material.

My advice is to replace the brick above the french doors with wood and paint it, and seal all the rest of the brick on the house.

Can you explain what you mean by this:

The brickwork between the top of the french doors and the windows above them is completely inadequate. There's no way in the world such a narrow strip of brick could ever work, and the same goes for limestone or any other masonary material.