A Golden Stones mason grinding failed mortar out of the joints on a brick wall
▲ 01 / Service Area

Where We Work

St. Paul, Minneapolis and the Surrounding Metro|Free Estimates|MN BC807211
Workmanship Warranty

10 Years

Workmanship warranty, in writing

Most of our work is in and around St. Paul and Minneapolis, and we go a good deal further for the right job. The list below is every city we have written a page for, with a straight answer at the bottom about what happens if you are further out than the last group on it.

There is no minimum job size, and there are no travel charges anywhere within this area. A single loose brick in Richfield is priced the same way as one in West St. Paul, and the drive is our problem rather than a line on your estimate.

▲02 / The Two Cities

The Two Cities We Build The Business Around

01 St. Paul Where we are

St. Paul is where we are, and it is most of what we do. It is also, by some distance, the harder of the two to work in. Sam's own description is weird foundations, weird layouts, old houses, and frequently more than one era of material inside a single wall. An elevation can carry original soft brick, a mid-century repair in something harder, and a later patch in whatever was to hand, bedded in three different mortars. That is not a complaint. It is the reason a St. Paul estimate takes longer than the same job elsewhere, and the reason a mason who works here constantly is worth more than one who does not.

02 Minneapolis Predictable below grade

Minneapolis is different below grade. Largely Platteville limestone foundations, which behave predictably and repair well. It is why so much of our basement and foundation work happens on that side of the river.

03

Everything else in the metro sits somewhere between those two, and knowing which one a house is closer to is most of what makes an estimate accurate.

▲03 / Cities

Cities We Work In

Grouped by how far out they are, because that is the part of geography that changes what we can offer you. Every city listed here has its own page explaining what the housing and the ground are actually like there.

For the last two we ask for photographs before scheduling a visit. That is not a refusal, it is how nobody spends a morning finding out the job was not ours. Both have their own page and both say so plainly.

▲04 / Why Distance

Why The Groups Are Distance And Not The Alphabet

Every service-area page in this trade lists cities alphabetically, which tells you nothing. We have grouped them by how far out they are because distance is the only aspect of geography that affects what we can offer you.

01 Close in Fast answer

Close in, an emergency call gets a fast answer, and a forgotten measurement means somebody drives back for it rather than guessing.

02 Across the metro Most of what we do

Across the metro covers most of what we do, including both of the cities the business is built around. Scheduling here is governed by the work more than by the map. A non-urgent job usually goes in within about a month. What moves that is whether the job is interior, which carries on through the winter, or exterior mortar, which needs weather mild enough to cure.

03 A longer run Same price, no travel charge

A longer run is still ordinary work, still priced the same, with no travel charge. What changes is that we will want to consolidate: if you are out at that range and the job is small, we may ask whether it can sit alongside something else in the same week. That is us being straight with you about how a small crew works, and it is not a condition of service.

▲05 / City By City

What Changes From One City To The Next

More than people expect, and it is the reason these pages exist at all, instead of one page saying we cover the metro.

01

The housing stock is the biggest variable. A street of 1920s houses and a street of 1960s houses fail in completely different ways: the first is soft brick and lime-set stone where the mortar goes long before anything else, the second is brick veneer on a timber frame where the thing that eventually fails is the metal ties buried in the joints. Those are different jobs, different prices and different conversations, and which one you have depends mostly on where you live.

02

What is under the house matters just as much. Platteville limestone behaves predictably and repairs well. Mixed rubble with three eras of material in the same run does not, and it takes longer to estimate honestly.

03

And deicing salt. How much of it a property takes depends on how much hard surface there is around the house, which varies more by neighborhood than by city. Our brick repair page covers what it does at grade.

▲06 / How Far

How Far We Will Travel

About 45 miles past St. Paul, we ask for photographs before booking. Our free estimate page explains which two shots are worth taking and why we ask.

If you are not on the list at all, call anyway. On a large enough job, the drive stops mattering, and if it is not something we can sensibly take on, you will hear that on the phone, before anybody books a visit.

▲07 / What We Do

What We Do Everywhere We Go

The Golden Stones Masonry crew at their work van

Chimney repair and rebuilds, tuckpointing, brick repair, stone and block foundations, basement repointing, front steps and stoops, stone patios and walkways, new brick and stone walls, fireplaces and interior stone, and light commercial. Each has its own page with what it covers and, where applicable, what it costs.

We work year-round. Interior work, estimates, and emergencies are not governed by the weather at all. Exterior work that lays fresh mortar or concrete is done when the temperature allows, because neither cures in a hard freeze.

▲ 08 / Estimate

Get A Free Estimate

Tell us where you are and what you are seeing. Sam comes out himself, and there is no charge whichever way you decide.

Call (612) 509-0718 · Free in-person estimate · MN BC807211

(612) 509-0718 A person answers during business hours; Sam does the estimate No service call fee