Today we helped a homeowner who is in the middle of a major full-house remodel remove an unwanted bathroom window and fill the space in with matching masonry. Here's a picture of what we had to begin with:
So we had a 2'-4" x 2'-4" window to remove and then the hole to fill in. If you look closely at the bond (that's the vertical joints between the blocks) you'll notice that the window opening doesn't align with the joints. So in order to do an infill that completely disguised the fact that there was ever a window there, necessitated removing a four feet wide portion of the blocks.
Here you can see the extent of the blocks removed in order to fill in the opening with full, 16" long blocks. We also removed the window sills, of course. If you look close, you'll notice that we didn't cut all the way through the wall. Since this is infill, we didn't want to remove the steel lintel that has been supporting the three courses of the block above the window opening. And on each side, the jambs, we didn't want to disturb the 8" x 8" solid grouted cells that support the lintel all the way from the foundation. This necessitated cutting every single block specifically for where each will be installed. That pile of blocks to the right of the mortar board, in front of the two red levels, are all cut and stacked to facilitate laying each one in it's specific place.
Once finished, the mortar joints are tooled to match the existing wall. All that remains is to add a coat of paint. This job took approximately 5 hours, 27 8x4x16 blocks and 2 bags of mortar. I used Rapid Set Mortar, so by the time I cleaned up the site and loaded up the truck, the mortar was rock hard and could be painted immediately, if the homeowner wanted to.
Call Mesa Masonry LLC on your next remodel project and fill in those unwanted openings to look as if they were never there.