The hearth of our old fireplace was made of the same bricks that make up the wall.  For the new fireplace we ordered a nice big piece of Pennsylvania bluestone.   The 5’x18″x2″ piece of bluestone weighed in at about 250lbs, so once agian I called upon my friend Greg to not only transport the stone home, but to also give me a hand installing it.

I left a decent bit of the old brick hearth behind, so that I wouldn’t need to use that much mortar to set the stone in.  Once I decoded the nomenclature of the various Quickrete products they sell at Lowes, I was able to mix up some mortar using a 3-1 ratio of sand (All-Purpose as opposed to the Play, and Medium sand) and Type N Masonry cement.  I mixed it with some water till it was reasonably thick but still workable.  I’ve read that the most common mistake first-timers make when mixing cement is to add to much water, so I tried to avoid that.  Once the mortar was mixed (which was a surprising amount of work) I spread it on top of the remaining bricks, and then lowered the stone into place.  I used a small piece of 2×4 to keep the piece level while it setup.