This do-it-yourself project is the perfect way to create a beautiful brick wall in your home, and no one will know that it’s faux! I have always wanted to incorporate a brick wall into my home. The problem I always encountered in trying to talk the Hubster into making this a reality was the installation process that the brick required. Nuwal Panels came to the rescue to ensure an amazing brick wall with the luxury of an easy installation process.
There has always been two places in my home where I have wanted to have a feature brick wall. The first is in my dining room. The second is a little hallway upstairs that you can see from my downstairs living room.
After doing some research, I knew that the easiest way to have this feature wall in my home (with the Hubster on board!) would be to have peel and stick panels. I felt that Nuwal Panels would be the best choice for our home.
First, they are able to be painted! Some of the vinyl panels that I found were not able to be painted. Which was not going to work for either space… The other great thing about Nuwal Panels are that they are made with a polyurea base. They also have iron oxides that give the panels their pigment and texture. Funny enough, polyurea is the same material used for a truck bed liner, so it’s extremely durable. Which is perfect for our home!
Either options would be great, but I felt it would be best to do the upstairs hallway. That way I could do a really modern faux brick wall. So after a click of a button the panels were on their way to the Farmhouse.
Let’s Install the Wall
The panels arrived and I really needed a break from big blue, a.k.a. our office. But the Hubster was adamant to get that done before we started another project. So I mustered my energy and finished the office! Next step, install our faux brick wall.
The first thing the Hubster and I did was remove the baseboard. We wanted to ensure the panels were level. Doing this made it so that we could reattach the baseboard once the wall was finished.
Our next step was to adhere the panels to the wall. Seriously, it was the fastest installation for a project we have ever done! All we needed to do was remove the adhesive backing, apply the panel to the wall, make sure it was level, and then apply pressure to the ensure adhesion.
Brick Panel Installation
To make it look like a real brick pattern, we did have to alternate the panel pattern. Every other row would have a full panel to begin with. The other row we needed to cut off a little more than 4.5″ to achieve the brick pattern aesthetic. At first, we used a miter saw to make these cuts. However, fabric scissors ended up working better! Plus, if you have small cuts to make, scissors are much safer.
If you reach an area where a panel needs to be installed, but adhesive is not in that area, just apply a bead of liquid nails to the panel and adhere it to the wall.
Grout It… With Caulk!
Trust me on this one, grout is necessary. Although it is faux, we didn’t want it to look that way. The great thing is there is no reason to worry about mixing grout by hand. We purchased eight tubes of the Sanded Paintable Latex Caulk so that no mixing was involved. This is a two person job though because the caulk does come out of the tube quite fast. While I would apply the caulk between the panels, the Hubster would spread the caulk around each brick. After we worked on an area, we would take a damp sponge and just lightly wipe off any excess caulk.
I would suggest taping off the wall before this step though… This caulk is able to be wiped off with water and a rag, but easier is always better.
Let’s Paint!
Of course, we were painting it. Painted brick is a trend with farmhouse design styled homes. In that area of our home, it needed the modern element. I felt that white would be too off-putting with our front door being Sherwin Williams Tricorn Black. So why not paint the faux brick panels the same color?! Which is what I did, but just with flat interior paint to ensure aesthetics.
Once the paint had dried, we removed the painter’s tape and attached the baseboard with a finishing nailer and 2″ finishing nails. We made the necessary paint touch ups that were needed.
The Completed Faux Brick Wall
At one point during the project, I asked on my Instagram stories if we should brick the interior portions of each window. The Hubster and I concluded that we would just encase each window when we got to the “window trim” project on the honey-to-do list. Thankfully, this wall looks amazing whether we encase the windows or not.
We are always working on new things at the Farmhouse. If you want to see snippets of these projects or to see my everyday life, scratch that, craziness, head on over to the 1776 Faux Farmhouse Instagram account. I’ll see you there!
DISCLAIMER:
A big thank you to Nuwal Panels for providing the panels mentioned throughout this post. The best news though, is that these panels are able for you to purchase at a discounted price. Use code “NICOLE1776” to receive 10% off at checkout.
