TomKat Masonry LLC

04/06/2026

What do you do when you are a bricklayer and need to do some brick repair on your own house… you keep looking for brick from somewhere that will match so you don’t have a twich every time you walk past it…

04/06/2026

Looking forward to sharing more photos of this transformation after the landscaping is finished.

04/06/2026

Tree roots are very strong… Previous client reached out about some problems they were having with their Crawlspace access door and the brick lifting on the skirting on this addition. Admittedly I had no idea the battle we were going to be fighting with these roots. They have a habit of growing right up to a foundation and making a wall. Somehow the roots got under the brickwork and lifted the brick about 1.5-2”.. We almost torched 2 different reciprocating saws and I had to break out my new multitool for work that it felt it didn’t deserve. I wish we had the arbortech… the existing footer was out of level probably an inch in 6 feet which just blows my mind that that is so common here in the Lowcountry.. how hard it it to make a footer level?

The existing Crawlspace access door was too big and actually into the mulch and dirt and beginning to rot out. We replaced it with one made from Cedar and High Density Polyethylene. This is the same stuff used for cutting boards. It feels good to leave the house in better condition and ready for the future.

03/23/2026

I usually have a fairly large role in picking out and finding materials… I take a lot of pride in making a good repair or match… this client had a vision. They had the materials picked out and the design and when the one supplier’s quote was a thousand dollars higher than expected and a lead time of many weeks was expected… they found another local supplier who could get them the exact same material the next week… I had shifted to using another brick.. they picked out supplied and installed their own mantle. Which honestly I love when clients can find their own mantles… it just feels like a very personal accessory to your home. We were able to install all of the products and remove the old drywall, set up a clean room and clean up in about a week. Really appreciate the pictures of the Mantle after it was installed too… Let us help your inspiration photos come to life.

03/21/2026

Sometimes when we give out bids… potential clients think our prices are great.. sometimes they think they are competitive.. and sometimes they think that we are trying to rip them off. I have come to find that there is no rhyme or reason to it. We try to give everyone a fair price and do good work. This is something that people may not think of… How much does this contractor care about working in my home? What will my home look like during and after construction? Am I going to have to hire a cleaning crew or spend days cleaning my entire house? Silica dust is a dangerous element to our work so everything we can do to limit the amount of dust for ourselves and our clients. Sometimes you are working in a new home and it doesn’t matter as much but other times it really does. We made a negative air room and installed a fan to blow mostly all of the dust out of the existing chimney. Or we would have ducted it out of a window. We also set up Ram Board and rigid insulation on the freshly redone hardwood floors to protect them from damage. This takes time… and adds to the expense. But it helps you to be able to leave someone’s home with them being able to enjoy the work and not dread the cleanup.

10/30/2025

Work on infilling for a new window installation and widening a front step. The existing brick on the house was longer than we could replace so we opted for a decorative pattern that we were able to duplicate on the front steps. Sometimes it works out good..

10/30/2025

Love this picture…

10/23/2025

08/23/2025

Nothing really special. Was able to infill a door opening for a friend and use some brick that was left over from a previous job. The match looks pretty good but the house will be getting lime washed. We also did some cosmetic crack repair and installed some footers and columns for a future deck.

08/23/2025

Small porch job getting done before the new railing and decking.

08/23/2025

If you drive around our area you will see a lot of houses with cracks on the gable end of the house where it goes over an attached garage. Pretty often the brick running up the gable end has been installed on the framing and sheathing of the garage roof. Not really a good idea to lay brick over wood. For one reason is that wood rots. So when there is a roofing issue the brick will then want to fall off of your house. This family spent money once to have this repaired. The repair lasted about 6 months and started to crack again. The contractor just installed it the way it was done before. We tore off the brick and installed steel angle irons and installed blocking to bolt the steel back to the house. It is a lot of work to go back in time and do something the way it should have been done the first time. Unfortunately the guys that did it the last 2 times felt that installing some steel was too much work then too.

06/24/2025

Installed an isokern fireplace from but used brick from … they probably don’t like that.. Client had existing fireplace that was installed about 20” off of the floor and had a good amount of water damage. The chase had been replaced but we think lowered because the old flue was sticking out like 30” of the metal pan. We replaced all of the fireplace as pictured and installed the firebrick with a herringbone pattern. Client is happy.