Faux Brick Wall Tutorial

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I am so EXCITED to share this project with you all! I’ve been wanting to find brick behind the walls in our home for so long, but unfortunately faux brick will have to do. We actually did find parts of an old brick chimney in our nursery renovation but there was so little that it couldn’t be saved. So today I am going to share just how easy it is to create your own faux brick wall using just joint compound!

This project only took me two days to finish, and that was after I had worked a full day at my actual career. The dirty work only took me about three hours to complete! That included taping (the longest part), spreading joint compound, and removing the tape.

Materials:

• All Purpose Joint Compound
• Putty Knife Set
• 1″ Painter’s Tape
• Paint of Your Choice
• Antique Wax (Optional)

Faux Brick Tutorial: Before

Please ignore my pieced together kitchen. Lord only knows what the previous owner thought he was doing. You see that piece of trim missing? That will soon be covered up with a corrugated metal awning. And we need a new piece of trim on the floor but whatever. A girl has to pick and choose what gets done first and what can wait in a farmhouse this old. There used to be a cat door there. We don’t have a cat. And if we did, it certainly wouldn’t be allowed to just come on into our house. See that built in shelf in the corner. I plan on finding some reclaimed wood to re-frame that in. Okay..on to the fun part.

Faux Brick Tutorial: Taping

For this part I used 1 inch painters tape. Actually it was like .98″. Who does that? Why not just make it 1″. Craziness. I was really hoping for 1/2″ but apparently they don’t make that. I was worried the 1″ tape would be too thick but it actually turned out perfect. I decided to measure my bricks at 3″ high and 7″ long. You do what feels right to you. I went off the measurements from my brick veneer backsplash since I wanted everything to flow in our kitchen. This is the longest part because you have to measure out every single brick. It doesn’t have to be exact since bricks are very random.

Faux Brick Tutorial: Applying Joint Compound

As for the joint compound, I don’t think it matters which one you use. And you probably aren’t going to need the whole 4.5 gallons I linked in my materials list. In fact I bought a 1 gallon container for around $7. We had another container at home that was leftover from our nursery renovation. This is the easy part. Just slap the joint compound all over your wall with a putty knife. Don’t worry about perfectness. In fact, you don’t want it to be perfect. Imperfect joint compound means perfectly textured faux brick. If you want, drag your putty knife through some of the joint compound to add even more texture and detail. Once your whole wall is covered, start pulling off the tape while the joint compound is still wet. This part gets messy, so have a trash bag nearby to stuff everything into.

This is what my wall looked like as soon as I removed the painter’s tape. The joint compound was still wet. Are you not seeing my faux brick vision yet? Keep reading! Let this dry overnight before painting or doing anything further.

Faux Brick Tutorial: Painting

I’m going to save you time and a headache. I made a huge mistake. I painted my grout line white before I started painting my bricks. DON’T do this. Take your paint brush and paint your bricks first. I repeat, paint your bricks first. And don’t worry about painting within the bricks. Get messy and make sure you aren’t only painting the middle of the bricks. This is going to help your faux brook look so realistic, no one will ever guess that it’s faux brick.

For my paint, I just used acrylic paint from Jo-Ann’s. Realistically, you can use any paint you want. The colors I used was a dark brown, chocolate brown, cream, grey, and antique white. I started with the browns, randomly painting bricks. I applied this paint the heaviest but I still only stippled my paint on. You don’t want your brick to be opaque and covered in paint. Once all my bricks were covered in brown, I randomly stippled the rest of the colors on in different patterns so that none of my faux brick looked the same.

Once you’re happy with how your bricks look, cut in with a paint brush and paint your “grout” in a color of your preference. I wanted white. I also went through and white washed all of my bricks as well. Again, this is personal preference. Be unique, and choose colors that you want in your home.

I loved it, but something was off. It didn’t take long to realize my kitchen cabinets are a cream color (old ochre by Annie Sloan to be exact) and our brick backsplash has a sand colored grout. Ugh. I really didn’t want to repaint all of the grout lines. So I left my faux brick wall for a day to think. Then a light bulb came on. I broke out my trusty Annie Sloan dark antiquing wax and brushed this on heavily on all the grout lines as well as on the bricks to antique my white wash I had applied.

Faux Brick Tutorial: After

P.S. Our red is not that gaudy. We have one window in our kitchen so the camera settings have to be used to brighten up the space.

And some detail shots to show you just how REAL this faux brick looks. I have to admit, I was so skeptical throughout this whole process. But I’m in love. And I think the hubby is too because he asked if I’d do the living room wall as well.

What do you all think of my faux brick wall? Would you try this in your home?

I think the best part is I spent less than $20 on this. I bought one gallon of joint compound for $7, a putty knife for $5, and some acrylic paint for $5. The rest of the materials I had laying around. That’s a grand total of $17!

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