Faux Brick ... our journey to the perfect finish

Phew!  What a relief, it feels so great that this project is now complete.

We started this project December 2010, I blogged about the FIRST reveal here.

In March last year I blogged that I was not happy with the original finish, that post is here.

I won't keep you in suspense, here is the final reveal ...

Now, back to November 2010 ...

First we primed the wall with white primer.  After the primer was applied I came across some faux brick wallpaper, we considered just putting up one of these and calling it a day.

 We were back and forth about the wallpaper for a week.  Rather than discussing anymore Frank got to work creating the brick.  He applied drywall compound to the wall and the bulk heads.  As he applied the compound he let it set for a bit then he would carve the brick shape out.  He used a large flat head screwdriver to carve the mortar lines.  We did not want perfect bricks, we wanted it to look old. If you want a more uniform look you can paint your wall the colour that you would like your mortar lines then tape out the brick pattern, then start to apply the compound.  Make sure you remove the tape before the compound dries!

Above is the wall with the drywall mud applied to it.

This is a closer look.

This is the 1st reveal of the wall all painted.

Something wasn't right, I kept playing with the paint but just couldn't get it to where I wanted.

I searched the internet and found this image, this is the beachy brick finish I wanted.

Frank to the rescue again, he painted the whole wall white, then sponged a mixture 

of greys with hints of warm brown paint to the brick.  Sooo much better!

The only thing needed now is some added shape and shadowing.  

The mantle shelf is painted with ASCP Old White here, after this picture was taken I sanded the shelf to distress it then applied clear and dark wax to give it an aged look.

Here is the completed wall!  Yay!  

Update to this post, the cost to complete the final look of this wall was less then $50.  1 pail of drywall compound $12, we already had a gallon of Behr Swiss Coffee paint with primer which was used to seal the compound and as our base colour for the finished wall, the brick colour and shadows were done using small bottles of acrylic craft paint from Michaels.  

We had done this on a smaller scale in the past, we did a back splash in a previous home.  When done as a back splash make sure you protect it with a sealant if water will be splashed on it (can't remember what we used)

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