More Pizza Oven Brick Veneer Added - July 2026

 Last month, I posted a couple of photos of doing some of the brick veneer on the pizza oven.  #5 on my 2026 to-do list is to 'finish up the oven' - which means finishing up the...well....finishes.  The exterior.  On the enclosure, that means brick veneer.  

I started the veneer late last year before the temperatures dropped.  Didn't get far.  But, due to the temperature tolerances of the veneer mortar, I had to wait out the Spring.  

With this being the first-time doing this type of work, I'm learning as I go.  I started on the back of the oven and moved around to the front.  Veneer isn't cheap, but there are higher-quality bricks and lower-quality ones.  My thought is that I could use the more-expensive veneer on the sides of the oven that people will see.  And, the cheaper stuff on the back.  Against the fence.  

I ordered a bunch of boxes of the 'cheaper' veneer and over the past few weeks got to work.  I applied the bricks to the back and didn't use 'corners' (those L-shaped pieces that give the impression of dimensional brick) on here because those are expensive.  

I ran 23 rows of bricks and left the far side for cutting day.  (That's when I'll break out the saw and make all the cuts at once.) 

See below for the back and one of the sides.  This side is where I started and You can see it got a little sloppy there.  I cleaned it up by breaking with a vertical column between the two brick types.

I'm going to run a vertical band around the 'waist' of this side to break up the visuals. 

And, here below, is an update on the front.  I ran that vertical 'band' underneath the hearth and have begun to veneer the 'legs' out front:

I've begun to think about the fascia, soffits and the rest of the trim.  It will be black.  That means I can look for PVC pieces or paint something more like 'wood'.  I also have been kicking the tires on using Black LVP for the soffits.