Having a sloped lot is proving to be more challenging than I anticipated, but I think having lots of natural rock retaining walls and layered landscaping to going to make for a very interesting front yard. Also, you can see the mess of rocks that will eventually (hopefully) be really cool landscaping. The house still needs the final paint job, which is all the touch-ups and painting the breeze block wall black. It gives definition to the courtyard/atrium/garden area and keeps the deer from eating everything in it.Īnd with that, we are 100% caught up on the outside of the house! All the pictures below this point are pictures I took yesterday.It gives privacy to the front of my house, which has more glass than I would be comfortable having without a privacy wall.It’s different than what you see every day, and makes the house unmistakenly mid-century. My breeze block wall serves a few purposes –

The cinderblocks and the breezeblocks are different heights, so the first cinderblock was cut in half to have everything lined up at five feet high. I also choose to have sold cinderblocks outlining my decorative blocks. Then the wall is built by stacking the breezeblocks in a grid pattern using mortar. My house is on a slope, so my concrete footer is about four feet tall and was poured at the same time as my foundation. In order to build a breeze block wall, you have to have concrete footing to lay them on. Here is a short video explaining the goal and showing progress and final results. I can tell you that my installation cost was $6 per square foot.Īs far as the process, let’s dive into that.Īs a reminder, here is what the front elevation looked like on my blueprints.Īt the end of the last post, I left you with a house that had been painted teal, and this sneak peek of the breeze block to come. Once again, price will vary greatly depending on where you live and who you hire. How much does it cost to have breeze block installed, and what is the process? So as you can see, taking the time to shop the options is a good use of your time. I paid $4.28 per sq ft (which is one block) from Best Block in their cloverleaf design.Īnother popular breeze block company, Tesselle, sells a block that is the same size and design and is prepainted white for $37.99 per sq ft (one block).Īnother company, Clay Imports, sells a similar design that comes in a terracotta two-block version for $15.91 per sq ft. The price of breezeblock is all over the map, so you will need to shop around. The size will vary slightly based on the manufacturer, but usually they are 1 ft x 1 ft. On their website is called fence block and they only have one design. I recommend using this guide from Retro Renovation, which tells you where you can purchase them by state. They used to be carried by Home Depot and Lowes, but have been discontinued.

So if you want to get your hands on some, you will need to include the following terms in your search – While “breeze block” is the most common term, it goes by many names. They are most often used in warmer climates and for privacy walls on entryways, patios, gardens, and courtyards. They come in many different designs, which add texture and pattern to a space. It is lightweight, nonstructural, and features holes for ventilation. What is breeze block?īreeze block is a decorative concrete block that was popular in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s. The exterior of the house is almost complete, and the very last piece of the puzzle is the breeze block wall! This is the part I’ve been the most excited about, since it’s probably the most unique feature on the front elevation and really gives it that mid-century flair I’m after.īefore I show you pictures of it going up on my house, let me answer a few questions.

Decorative breeze blocks