Whether it's brick or pavers, my experience is that the lighter colors are more expensive. I'm sure it has to do with the $$$ of the light color materials used to make the product.

Have you viewed Boral Brick? I have no idea how they compare in price to Acme.

Thank you both! I haven't compared prices as my builder typically goes with Acme, but it seems comparable from what I can tell online. I haven't seen anyone lay brick at all and at first the mark up seemed like a lot, but the more I've looked into it, the more I understand why. Just wondering if $1000 was in the ballpark and seems like it is.

Wait ... $1000 extra for the color of the mortar? I first read this as the color of the brick, and I thought that was a good splurge ... but for the mortar? I'm not sure that's a reasonable price. Yeah, yeah, I "get" that mortar changes the look. Of course, you must consider the size of the house; this house is almost 2Xs the size of the average American house, so of course more costs more. For mortar though, I don't think I'd do it.

Well, the real answer is, I'd want to see a mock up of both options. I'm answering hypothetically ... if it were my money on the line, I'd want to see reality.

Another related question is, are you currently on track with your budget, and what other splurges will appeal to you? Is this where you want to splurge, or will you want something else inside the house more?

White brick costs more, white/light color mortars cost more.....that's pretty standard. How much more will depend on your location, the size of the house, where the brick is coming from.....etc. Don't underestimate the color of the mortar, it can be visually up to 30% of what you see on a house facade. So, if you really like the "white look", don't skimp on the mortar, especially if you already paid a premium for white brick. Plenty of gray and tan mortars are used with white brick and look good, just depends on what look you are going for.

Our mortar color was one price point above the standard gray color and there were probably 10 colors more expensive than ours. Each bag of our color was about $12. With our mortar color we used 'standard' mason sand. Light mortar colors require light sand, which I am sure is an up-charge from standard. We used about 50 bags of mortar. That makes our relatively inexpensive mortar $600.

So $1000 for cream color mortar sounds reasonable to me.

Light mortar colors require light sand, which I am sure is an up-charge from standard.

White silica sand is often sold by the bag, not by the tonne.

As mentioned previously, you might want to see sample boards of the brick and mortar.

It absolutely costs more, and $1000 sounds more than reasonable for a 4000 sq foot house. We live in a brick home about that size, and we knew from the beginning we were going to paint the brick white. I remember the builder said that we could make up a bit of the costs of the painting bc we could go with grey mortar and a less expensive brick. We did have taupe mortar used for the front and back porch floors and steps and before we painted the house the difference in the way the brick looked with the grey mortar on the house and the taupe on the porch floors was amazing. It totally changed the look. Don’t skimp on the mortar color!!