French Farmhouse Faux Brick Wall

I am doing the happy dance and cannot wait to show you part one of my french farmhouse kitchen wall and china cabinet re love.

I showed you this wall:

Before:

This was the long wall in my kitchen.  I got my china cabinet back from my daughter and thought I would somehow make it work on this wall.

Well that started a whole thing.  We took everything down off the wall.  I was just going to paint the wall and then bring in the china cabinet and paint that and work some decor in around it.
Then I started to think about this wall and thought hmmm...  It needs some character of an old french farmhouse kitchen so.........

After seeing sweet Pamela's faux brick wall from My Front Porch To Yours and a few other tutorials on Pinterest,  I decided to go for it.

Here is the step by step tutorial on how I did my Faux Brick Wall.

Terry and I bought these faux brick panels from Menards.  You can get them at Lowe's too.  They were $22 a panel and come in 4X8 panels.  Our wall took two panels.

After Terry cut and fitted the panels to the wall with a nail gun.  I began to paint all the grout lines from black to white.  Just used white latex paint I had.  If you get a little on the bricks it is ok since there are more layers of paint to come.  It looks tedious but it really wasn't that bad.  Maybe 30 minutes to do this whole wall.

This is step one finished.  I know it still looks like grandma's basement but just wait it gets better!

Step two was to use Annie Sloan Chalk Paint on the bricks.
I used Paris Grey watered down just a little bit.  About 3 parts paint to 1 part water.  I used a regular paint brush to put the paint onto the bricks.  Terry and I worked on this together.  We both started at each end and worked to the middle.  It goes so much faster when you have a paint partner!!!!

We did the pyramid method.  Not sure that is the "technical" term but that is what I called it.  If you paint in uneven rows like this your seams are easier to hide.

Ok after putting on the Paris Grey Chalk Paint it looked like this.  So now step 2 was done.

Step 3:  White washing the brick.  I used regular white paint for this step.  You could use chalk paint too but I just used what I had and it was white latex paint.  

I brushed a section about the size you see above in white paint (did not water down the white latex paint)  and then took a damp cloth and blotted over the bricks.  This way some of the grey came through to give that old weathered brick look and a variation to the color of each brick.  This is fun because you can control the amount of white that shows and how much grey you want to come through.  

Then let it dry.  
I used Paris Grey chalk paint for the base coat and Behr white latex satin for white washing.  I wanted this color combo to go with my white and grey french decor in the kitchen.  You can use any color combo's you like.  I know Pamela used a few different colors throughout her bricks to get a varied color look.  I wanted a more weathered soft gray and white brick.

Step 4:  We taped off the corners where the wall meets the brick and  taped paint plastic drop clothes to the bottom of the wall onto the floor.  This is really important to do because the next step I am going to show you is very messy.  So this makes for easy clean up and protects the bottom wall and floor.

Step 5:
Grouting the brick to give more texture and a realistic look to the brick.  I got this pre mixed grout at Home Depot in the bright white.  It comes in different colors.
It says it is bright white but it really is more of an ivory.
This large container of grout will run you around $24 dollars.  It comes in smaller pints too for around $10 but we used almost all of the gallon for my half wall.

Terry bought this rubber float for $5.  Totally worth the $5 to smooth the grout onto the bricks.  Worked much better than a putty knife.

You can put on the grout with the putty knife but we found it to go on smoother and easier with the $5 float.

We started from the middle of the wall and worked out.  I do not think there is any specific way you have to do this.  This was just the way Terry decided to start.

This is why you really need the plastic throw away drop cloth.  It gets messy.  The drop clothes are 4 in a package for $3.

Yep very messy.  Easy Peasy clean up with plastic throw away drop clothes.

Grout completed.  Let dry for 20 to 30 minutes.

Up close of grouted bricks.  The grout really gives the brick grout lines 3 D texture.

Step 6:  Removing the Grout off Bricks

Ok this is where we messed up some. Most of the tutorials say to use a putty knife and scrap off the grout.   I did not want to do that for fear of losing my paint on the bricks.  Plus to be honest we left the grout on too long.  If you start to remove the grout while it is still wet I think it will come off easier.  We left this on overnight so........

So we took Terry's mouse sander and put a wet old cloth over the sander and ran that wet over the bricks.  That helped to remove a lot of the access grout on the bricks.

Next we took these Drywall Screen sheets that we attached to a pole sander.

After Terry attached the dry wall screen to the pole sander I took a old wash cloth and got it soaking wet and then went over a small section of the bricks with the wet cloth.  While the area is still wet Terry took the pole sander with the screen on it and sanded over the bricks.  This worked perfectly to give the brick a authentic look and variation in colors.  The bricks looked old and weathered.

You will go through several sheets of the dry wall screens.  They came 2 screens per package for around $3.  We used 4 screens or 2 packages for the whole wall.

The dry wall screen on the pole sander makes the grout smooth out and makes the bricks look and feel weathered like real exposed brick would.

So that is all the steps I did to get this  smooth weather exposed brick wall.  I love that the grays and whites come through in different areas to give a realistic look.  The texture to the bricks feel real too.  So this is my tutorial on my faux brick wall.
I know you can get more involved with using plaster etc. to get an even more 3 D effect.  For my kitchen wall I just wanted a weathered soft flat brick wall.  I did not want a lot of uneven grout to stick out.

Stay tuned to see what happens with this black china cabinet.  Total transformation of this piece and some new "old" vintage cabinet doors are going to be re loved onto this piece.  The mirrors will be gone.  New vintage hardware will be added.  She is going to get a total make over.  Hope to have a post on the cabinet make over and the faux brick wall behind decorated soon.

Have a wonderful Sunday.  We are getting bitter cold again here in Chicago land this week.  Ughhh!  Hope March brings in some warmer temps.
Kris
:)

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