Recently, the so-called loft style has gained great popularity, including, among other things, open brickwork or its imitation on one or more walls.
The owners of apartments in brick houses are lucky in this regard - it is enough to leave the wall as it is or remove the plaster, but those living in panel or wooden houses should not be upset either. In this master class, I will show you how, if you wish, you can make an imitation of brickwork on any surface with your own hands.
I must say right away that this process is simple, anyone can handle it, but it will take a sufficient amount of time.
For work we need a number of tools and devices:
- gypsum plaster;
- a container for mixing plaster;
- wooden slats with a section of 1x1 cm, a length of 1 meter or their analogue (I ordered in a carpentry workshop);
- level;
- glue gun and rods to it;
- spray gun;
- wide and small spatulas;
- a sander or a block with sandpaper (for large areas, of course, the first is desirable);
- primer;
- paint, brush, paint roller;
- ruler, pencil.
1. First, prepare the surface for application - remove everything that falls off or is about to fall off. Otherwise, surface irregularities do not matter.
2. We cut one of the wooden slats into 6,5 cm long pieces - we will need them for the lintels between the bricks. The bricks themselves are 25x6.5 cm (natural size).
3. Using a level, a ruler and a pencil, mark the lines for the location of our bricks and glue the guides with hot glue.
Please ignore the plaster grid on the wall. This was the first experience, and the decision to make brickwork on the mesh was wrong. With our plaster thickness, the grid is, in principle, not needed. This was confirmed in practice by experience No. 2.
4. We dilute gypsum, moisten the wall and cover it with plaster. Do you need to do this quickly enough?
Align with a large spatula along the guides.
I recommend mixing gypsum plaster in small portions, about 1 square meter at a time. In the beginning, you can do less, so to speak - a trial batch.
The already painted ceiling was protected with masking tape.
5. If we want to get a beautiful, even, "new" brick, wait 15-20 minutes for the plaster to set a little, then draw the side of the trowel along all the guides and detach them from the wall.
If we want a beautiful, "old" brick with chips and irregularities, we wait for the plaster to dry thoroughly and become solid, and only then remove the guides.
I like the first option, but in some places I plan to make chips and irregularities.
After the guides are removed, I still manually form the perimeter of the brick, wetting it with water, smooth out the irregularities.
For comparison, in the photo below, the guides were removed when the plaster was completely dry.
An interesting point of decoration around the front door.
There is a small gap between the door and the wall, sealed with polyurethane foam and a protruding corner of the wall. For convenience, I use a piece of plastic cornice as a limiter.
6. In the dry area, you can start to "seal the seams". This process is easier to do if you put the plaster in a tight plastic bag, cut a small hole in the corner, squeeze it into the seam (like a cream for pastry) and spread.
7. If you are satisfied with the result, then you can skip this item. But I wanted to make the wall smooth. Sanding is the most unpleasant, noisy and dusty stage in this process.
8. After sanding, you need to thoroughly clean the wall from dust, prime and paint. I painted with interior washable paint in 2 layers.
Work results:
In conclusion, I want to say that there are a lot of ways to simulate brickwork, so I will allow myself to voice the positive and negative aspects of this particular method, based on my own experience of "construction and operation" (in operation for the third year already).
Pros:
- lays down on any surface (in my experience - a concrete wall, a partition made of wood);
- perfect evenness of the walls is not important + removes irregularities;
- the ability to choose the degree of "aging" of the brick;
- naturalism (many of my guests thought that I lived in a brick house);
- wear resistance;
- easy to update (touch up, repaint, plaster);
- environmental friendliness.
Of the minuses, I can note the significant laboriousness of this method and a large amount of dust at the repair stage. No minuses in operation have been found yet. There is no desire to update the wall, since it still looks dignified and is not tired.