Imitation of a brick wall (masonry) with your own hands: 7 ways, photos and videos

One of the fashion trends in interior decoration is a brick wall. Good for those who have a brick house. All they need is to beat off the plaster and slightly “shamanize” what is available. But what about the rest? There are wallpapers and brick-like tiles, but not all of them are believable, and good ones cost almost like a natural brick wall. The best option in this case is a self-made brick imitation for interior decoration. Moreover, “brick-tiles” can be made separately, or you can decorate the entire wall in one go. 

How to make an imitation of a brick wall: a short list of ways

The easiest way is if you have brickwork hidden under the plaster. Upholster the plaster, clean the seams, primer and paint. It turns out a natural brick wall. And it will look quite “old” and vintage. Those who are less fortunate will have to imitate this brickwork. The good news is that there are many ways, inexpensive materials are available, you can make a “brick wall” on concrete, drywall, plywood … any more or less durable surface. Time, by the way, most techniques take a little. So, here’s how you can make an imitation of brick for interior decoration:

• Make a “brick-like tile” by sawing an ordinary brick into plates.
• Draw with acrylic paints.
• Print the picture and use it as wallpaper.
  

  

• Make a silicone mold with an imprint of beautiful bricks and cast a gypsum tile imitating a brick in it.
• Simulate brickwork with plaster, tile adhesive, decorative plaster. Seams to do:
  • with the help of tape;
  • cutting and removing excess;
  • squeezing out the seams with a template.
• Cut out of thin foam.
• Cut from drywall.
• Make a frame from thin strips. Planks – seams, fill the space between them with mortar. These will be bricks.
  

  

This is just a short list. Each item has several technological differences. So imitation brick for interior decoration can be done in at least a dozen ways. Let’s talk about some in more detail.

sawing a brick

The idea seems reasonable to replace the expensive “brick-like” finishing tiles with bricks loosened into plates. But a brick is needed of good quality, without voids, inhomogeneities, underburning or burnt places. In general, a brick is needed expensive. Or old.

It is better to cut it with a water-cooled circular saw. You will get a decorative brick-like tile in natural color. The thickness of the tile is at least 8-10 mm. The advantages are clear: low price, no need to paint – there is a natural color. This homemade brick-like tile is then glued to the walls using ordinary tile adhesive.

But there are also disadvantages: you need a good quality brick, but you still need to find it. When cutting, the plates may break. Only two of them are obtained with a beautiful surface – extreme. The rest will have to be finalized manually, creating a relief. It is dreary, dusty, long, difficult and it is not a fact that brick imitation will learn really “on the level”.

With all the shortcomings, this method is used. And this is perhaps the only option for home-made imitation of brickwork, which can be used for outdoor decoration. For these purposes (finishing the facade of the building), by the way, you can cut a brick into two halves. Everything is cheaper than buying tiles.

How to paint brickwork on a wall

If “wet” or “dusty” work is not your forte, but you know how to draw at least a little, you can draw a brick wall. You will need acrylic paints, brushes, a couple of natural sponges, masking tape, thick paper plates for mixing paints. When diluting paints, remember that acrylic paints darken when they dry. And one more thing: they dry quickly, but freshly applied ones can be removed with a clean cloth dipped in water.

First, we prepare the workplace: we cover the plinth and the adjacent floor with polyethylene or old wallpaper (it is better to fix it with adhesive tape). With masking tape we outline the borders – at the top, on the sides. At the bottom, the limiter is a plinth, although, in order not to get dirty, it can be removed.

Draw bricks on the wall

Next step by step:

1. We paint the wall with white semi-gloss acrylic paint. We leave to dry.
2. Preparing background paint. In one of the paper plates, mix 1/6 of the umber, 1/6 of the black paint and 4/6 of the titanium white. We immediately prepare some paint, apply it to the wall with a sponge, simply by applying the surface soaked in paint to the wall. Do not try to make a solid background – it should be torn, textured. In some places we put the paint more densely, passing twice, somewhere with a more transparent layer.
   

   

3. On a dried background, by hand, not on a ruler, draw several rows of bricks. We focus on the standard for masonry: 25 * 6,5 cm, the thickness of the seam is 0,8-1,2 cm. When marking, please note that using this technology it is easier to make the seam a little narrower by painting over it than to try to expand it later.
4. To stain the “bricks” it is necessary to mix ocher and sienna in different proportions, getting different shades of “brick” colors – from yellowish-orange to brownish. We got some shade, painted a few “bricks” in random places. They mixed a new portion, painted over other bricks. We apply the paint with a brush, not trying to get a uniform surface or a dense layer of paint – the background layer is translucent. The edges of the “bricks” should also not be smooth.
5. For the traditional red-brown color, to sienna and red ocher, add a little light ocher, a little white. This color can be painted over several bricks in a row.
   

   

6. Another shade – add brown mars and a little water to the above composition. Apply with a brush or sponge – as desired.
7. If white and burnt sienna are added to ocher and sienna, we get another color.
8. We paint over all the bricks in random order with these shades.
9. Dilute white and a little ocher, add water. We apply the composition with a sponge, acting like a tampon.
10. We take an old toothbrush and “burnt bone” paint. We dip the bristles into the paint and spray it on the wall, imitating the heterogeneity and texture of clay bricks.
    

    

11. We give the bricks volume: dip a thin brush into a mixture of umber and white. We bring all the bricks from below and to the right or left. All on one side, depending on where the window is located (on the side opposite the window). The thickness of the eyeliner is different, since the masonry and the bricks themselves cannot be perfect.

Describing is much longer than doing it all. A beginner can draw about 30 squares of imitation brickwork in a day. For maximum likelihood, there are several secrets, which we will discuss below.

Final touches

To make the brickwork painted on the wall look as natural as possible, there are a few small secrets:

• If the shadows near the bricks turned out to be too sharp, they can be shaded with a toothbrush (other) dipped in a mixture of white and natural sienna, highly diluted with water.
  

  

• After applying the paint to the brick, do not wait until it dries. Take white, add a little umber, dip a sponge and use it to “break” the uniformity of the paint, imitating a rough surface. To do this, slightly touch the “brick” with a sponge.
• On a plate, next to the main batch, squeeze out a little of the other colors. They change color in the course of painting. The brick will not be monophonic. It has a smooth and not very color gradient.
  

  

• The dimensions of the bricks, their edges, seams – all this does not have to be perfect.

With some ability and diligence, it is possible to ensure that the painted brickwork looks like natural. The main rule: imperfection and heterogeneity.

Brick imitation for interior decoration from plaster mortar

The general idea is simple: a layer of plaster or tile adhesive is applied to the wall, a seam is cut / pressed through it. After processing the edges of the “bricks” and seams, painting, a semblance of brickwork of varying degrees of plausibility is obtained. Everything is simple, but there are significant differences and nuances.

What and how to make a solution

The first question that arises is: what solution and from what is needed? Lots of recipes. Here are some options:

• Conventional cement-sand mixture: for 1 part of cement (ordinary Portland cement is fine, but if you want to look for pink or white), take 3 parts of sifted fine sand, shut with water.
• Stucco mixture and tile adhesive (about 1 to 1).
• Textured plaster of a suitable color, to which is added roller plaster (such as bark beetle, with sand) of a similar color, but of a different shade. They are mixed only slightly so that the composition remains heterogeneous.
  

  

• Ready plaster mixture (dry) + putty, dilute PVA (the best option for finishing plywood, OSB, GKL).

Regardless of what you make the solution from, it should be semi-dry, should not flow in any case. It will not need to be leveled, so its plasticity is not important to you, and additives – tile adhesive and PVA – will provide the adhesive ability. To adjust the consistency, add water in small portions.

Surface preparation

The wall on which we will make an imitation of brickwork does not have to be even. It should not be dust and dirt, crumbling fragments and particles. This is where the requirements end.

Before starting work, it is better to prime the wall. The type of primer depends on the substrate. If the wall is concrete or loose, go through the “concrete contact”. It will bind crumbling particles, create an adhesive surface on which any composition fits perfectly. If we decorate plywood, plasterboard or other similar material, you can do without a primer, or you can coat it with diluted PVA.

Technology number 1. We use thin tape to draw the seams

First, paint the wall in the color of the seams between the bricks. Someone plans gray-brown, someone white-gray. We cover the wall with paint of a suitable shade. On the prepared base, using a narrow masking tape (1 cm or a little less / more), we apply markings. The adhesive tape will mark the seams between the bricks, so we stick it horizontally, at a distance of about 6-6,5 cm from each other. When the horizontal lines are glued, glue the short vertical ones. From each other they are at a distance of 23-25 ​​cm – this is the length of a standard building brick, but decorative ones can be shorter.

Now we take the solution, apply it to the wall. The layers are not the same, the thickness is 0,3-0,5 cm. We apply it according to the “how it goes” type, without achieving a flat surface, smooth transitions … As it turned out, let it be so. We do not allow only obvious bald spots through which the wall glows. We filled the area, took a flat trowel (grater), slightly smoothed out what happened. Leave until it dries slightly: so that when pressed with a finger, the composition is slightly squeezed.

We hook the ends of the horizontally glued strips of adhesive tape anywhere (when sticking, leave the “tails”), pull, remove along with the solution stuck to the tape. We remove the entire network. The edges of the “bricks” in this case are torn uneven. This is fine. Even good.

We take a toothbrush or a paint brush with fairly stiff bristles. We go through the seams with a toothbrush, removing the remnants of the solution. At the same time, the edges of the bricks are rounded. Then we take a wider brush and go through the surface with it, adding naturalness, removing too sharp edges. Leave to dry at room temperature for about 48-72 hours. Forced drying is impossible – it will crack. Although, if you want to have cracks … If the composition has not been dyed in bulk, it’s up to painting.

Technology number 2: cut through the “seams”

This method of imitation brick for interior decoration takes less time: no need to glue adhesive tape. We apply a solution to the surface of the wall. Everything is exactly the same as described above, only the layer can be thicker – up to 0,8-1 cm. After waiting for the solution to “grab” a little, we designate the seams. Here again, there are options:

• We stretch the twine, along which there will be a horizontal “seam” of decorative brickwork. Cut two lines with a knife. Do not use a ruler, cut by hand.
• We take a bar of the required width – 0,8-1,2 cm, press it in the right place so that it is slightly imprinted. Using a knife, cut the applied solution along the marked lines.
  

  

The second option is more accurate. But you have to be careful not to be too flat. Although, due to the fact that the hand trembles, the seam “walks” slightly, which gives a more believable look.

Having done the horizontal seams, we proceed to cutting the vertical ones – also by hand. The width of the bricks is about 6 cm, the length is around 23-25 ​​cm. When finished, we wait 12-14 hours. Until the composition is set enough to be picked off. When, with strong pressure, the concrete begins to crumble, we take a wide screwdriver (usual, which is a “spatula”) and pick out the mortar between the cut strips with it.

When the seams are cleaned, we take a hard brush or brush, remove the remnants of the solution, crumbs. The bristles on the brush should be fairly stiff. If the solution is dry, you can try more drastic measures – a metal brush.

Technology number 3: seams with a saw

This way to make an imitation of brickwork for interior decoration differs only in that instead of a knife we ​​take an old hacksaw blade.

After waiting until the mortar sets and does not creep, with the help of a saw we mark the boundaries of the seams. Here you choose one of the methods described above. But you don’t have to wait any longer: with a hacksaw, you paint the seams a little. It is quick to make long horizontal seams, but with vertical ones it is not very convenient, since the canvas is not very suitable for small distances.

This method is good because there is no danger of “overdrying” the solution. You can do the “joint” as soon as the solution hardens a little. In this state, it is easier to round the edges of the bricks, giving them a natural “old age”. Minus – you have to adapt, otherwise you can do things.

We make a mold for casting brick tiles from gypsum

Another imitation of brick for interior decoration in an apartment or house can be cast: you can make gypsum tiles yourself in the form of bricks. To do this, an impression is taken from interesting specimens of bricks (a mold is made to form an artificial finishing stone), then a gypsum mortar is poured into it. The resulting tiles are used for wall decoration. This technology is good because it allows you to prepare several forms in which you can make bricks of different colors for different rooms.

We find bricks of interesting shape and a few almost ordinary ones, but with various small defects. We will use them for mold casting. It is desirable that there be at least a dozen of them, and preferably more. More diverse will be “artificial brickwork.”

On the side that we will “multiply”, we apply grease or heated wax mixed with kerosene. This is necessary so that the silicone does not stick to the surface. When everything is dry, apply a layer of silicone sealant to the treated side. The layer thickness is 1-1,5 cm. Leave until the silicone is completely polymerized (the time depends on the type, it is written on the package).

When the silicone has hardened, we take the mounting foam and coat the mold without removing it from the brick. After the foam hardens, remove the brick, level the bottom of the mold so that it stands level. Can be used by filling with gypsum mortar. It sets quickly, if you have a dozen shapes in 2-3 days, you can make a tile for a couple of squares of imitation of a brick wall. Gypsum mortar, by the way, can be painted in bulk. Then new cracks and chips do not matter – like a brick.

How and what to paint

Recently, a white brick wall has become fashionable. If you are going to do just that, there are no problems: seams with a brush, the surface with a roller. If you want to have a not too monochromatic color, add a little tint to the base coloring composition – gray, brown, yellow … or at least pink or blue. Paint with this paint. Add more white to the rest and add highlights with this lighter composition using a semi-dry roller, sponge, brush. If desired, you can apply the upper “shadows” with silver, bronze, adding a little gold. Here is what you like best.

If the seams in the imitation of brick luggage should be darker, first go through them with a brush. Then, with a roller with a short or medium pile, we paint over the very surface of the bricks. If you take a roller with an even shorter pile, dip it in paint of a different shade (lighter or darker – that’s how it goes), in bronze, silver, gilding, etc. and with this roller, quickly, slightly touching, paint over the most protruding parts, you get an even more interesting effect. In general, you can experiment. With this approach, imitation of brick becomes a design object and the main decoration of the interior.