DIY Brick Wall

I’ve had the idea to do this brick wall in my head for several months. As soon as I finished the mirror wall & trimming out the windows in the dining room, I knew I wanted to start the brick.

Here’s our “extended” foyer. In other words a waste of space, haha! Our regular foyer is pretty large, and you can see part of it where that dark credenza is. For spacial reference, it’s adjacent to my dining room. The extended foyer is just an empty hall that leads to our grand room. It has two huge empty walls. One side is inset between two smaller walls, and I wanted that to be the focal side. The “wow” side of an otherwise boring space. I already have these 2 sconces and my favorite piece of art on that side, and just want to add a nice texture behind them, as to not take away from them. And I am purposely leaving the other side blank. I don’t want to draw your eyes in multiple ways and make it too busy or distracting. Instead, just focus on the wow side 🙂

I debated for a bit whether I wanted to get a 3D paintable brick wallpaper, make my own bricks with joint compound and masking tape, or get this brick paneling from Lowe’s. Ultimately I decided on the brick paneling from Lowe’s as I thought it would give me the most realistic look, be inexpensive, and relatively easy to install.

Each sheet is 4′ x 8′ and is $30. It’s a quarter inch thick and is most comparable to MDF. It’s very flexible and easily cut. My foyer wall is 90″ wide by 12 feet tall so it would take 3 sheets for the whole project coming in at just $90 plus tax. My favorite part of these projects (besides the outcome of course) is the super awesome price tag!

I brought one sheet home and immediately started rolling on paint to see if it would stick. The internet says to “lightly sand” the brick before painting it, but nooooo thanks! I used a Sherwin Williams paint + primer in Accessible Beige satin finish and with 2 coats it covered nicely! I painted the brick the exact same color as the walls in my home, but my walls are a flat finish.

So I went inside and started removing the first sconce light and outlet cover where I was going to place the first 4×8 sheet. I did not cut the first sheet at all other than the holes for the light and outlet seen below.

I measured, measured, and measured again for where to cut the holes and then drew them in pencil on the brick. I used a drill to make holes in the brick so that I could drop my jigsaw in and then traced along my lines. The edges didn’t have to be pretty because the light fixture, and outlet plate would cover them.

I brought the sheet inside and dry fit it against the wall to see if my holes lined up. Amazingly they did!

I found the studs in the wall with my stud finder and placed pencil marks where they were lightly along the baseboard. I held the first sheet of brick as tightly as I could in the corner of the wall and baseboard. Then I used my nail gun to put 2.5″ finish nails through the brick and into the studs in the wall. I put nails all the way down each stud about 12″ apart.

I decided to dry fit and cut the second sheet of brick before I painted it, since the jigsaw and circular saw chipped the paint off. For the second sheet, I aligned the bottom of the sheet with the baseboard again and the left side of the sheet with the one already on the wall. This way all the bricks lined up perfectly. Then I cut the right side approximately 6″. I used my circular saw and a scrap piece of wood as a guide to make the cut. After the piece fit snug on the wall, I went back and measured where to cut the hole for the second sconce light.

Below you can see how the two sheets line up and how important it is to make the bricks align as best as possible. Also. WALLS ARE NOT STRAIGHT. Even brand new homes like mine. So that means the 6″ I had to cut off was about 6″ at the top and about 5.5″ at the bottom. So I made to dots on the brick and used a straight edge to connect them and made a slightly diagonal cut with my circular saw to make sure the brick would line up with the side of the wall.

Next was the 2 pieces for the top. Unfortunately I couldn’t just take an entire sheet and lay it on its side because the bricks would not line up. So I had to cut two squares to fit the top portion of the wall. Again, I made sure the bottom and right sides were not cut in order to match up with the piece below it. Then I cut the left and top to align with the wall and ceiling.

Below is where all 4 pieces meet up. On this cross hair, NONE of these sides were cut. They were left alone so that they matched up well. And all cuts were made along the wall and ceiling sides. I hope that makes sense. Once all the pieces were nailed up I began sanding down all the seams. The edging of the brick sheets have somewhat of a raised texture to them and they look much more flush and lined up if you sand them. That’s why some of the paint has rubbed off in the picture below.

After I sanded down the seams, I went in and filled them all with caulk. I used caulk around the sides and ceiling edges as well. None was needed along the bottom baseboard edge.

Below is the intersection point of all 4 sheets again. Looks pretty good after it’s sanded, caulked and painted over right? It’s almost non existent. I was super happy with how the seams turned out to be honest!