Adding a brick wall

The kitchen is defiantly coming along. I am still waiting on counter tops to come, but on a whole it is usable and I am loving it! The wall color I chose is fairly light and the cabinets are white, so I knew I needed a punch of something in the room to add some fun interest.  I love the look of exposed brick, and I knew that was what I wanted a touch of in my kitchen.   We have added a little brick in the house already in the stair landing, and I loved how that turned out.  I decided to do a little more and use the same brick I used for that for this space.

Here is the wall between the kitchen and the family room.  We started by screwing in cement backer board onto the drywall.  This helps the bricks adhere to the wall better and gives you a nice flat surface to work with.

Next we mixed some mortar and went to work finding the center of the wall, working outward creating a brick pattern.  We had plastic spacers we found in the tile aisle to keep the brick from slipping down and keep the spaces more uniform.  Brick is so fun to work with.  It cuts great on the tile saw, and it doesn’t have to be totally perfect.  In fact, a few imperfections makes it look more authentic.  My son was actually our brick layer for most of this project.

When it is all done you let it sit for a day or two and then you can grout it.  I decided to use gray grout for this project.  The color makes the brick look older, like it has been there since the house was built.

I love how much architectural interest this provides for the room. We added a light and a fun desk, and it has become a great spot to sit down and work on the computer.