I just got a quote for some masonry work on my 1890 brick house and it came in at over $5K - ouch! I'm wondering about doing it myself. There is about 100 sq ft of repointing, and this to me looks pretty simple although probably tedious and time-consuming for a beginner like me. I'll have to use lime mortar, it seems, and find a way to match the colour and style of the existing mortar joints. The other work is replacing some bricks that have been damaged by salt along the driveway, resetting a few stones in the foundation, and redoing the top few courses of the chimney and capping it (used to be for furnace, but I now have high-efficiency direct-vent furnace and water heater). The chimney one I am thinking I'll leave to the masons as it will need scaffolding etc. It's about $1200 of the quote. But I think I can do the repointing and I'm not sure about replacing bricks or re-setting stones. Anyone else taken this on - is this a good DIY job? Or portions of it?