The option of an accent wall lined with decorative bricks is, perhaps, considered by everyone who has recently planned a renovation. And even if you are not a fan of the loft-style and do not dream of combining red brick with a concrete ceiling, you probably came across photos of a white brick wall in the Scandinavian style, kitchen aprons lined with small bricks, and even a brick in the bathroom, which gives the necessary volume and texture the room. More about repair electrogardentools.com
Which brick to choose, what to mount it on, how thick the seam should be, which grout to choose, how to wash the brick from grout and mortar – about this and much more – using the example of dozens of successfully completed repairs.
Story 1. About the fact that everything should be “natural”.
Imagine: you have chosen a decorative brick for interior decoration, but it breaks / crumbles / looks artificial or does not match in color. How to be?
Among all the variety of brands and manufacturers of decorative bricks, according to our experience, White Hills brick has proven itself well. It imitates the texture of natural brick, is unevenly colored so that each brick differs from the other and does not create a feeling of “stamping”. It is not too “thin”, and most importantly – it is sold both in specialized stores of decorative bricks and in large stores (they found it in “Leader”) and hypermarkets (Castorama, Leroy Merlin), that is, if something happens, you can always buy the required amount.
Story 2. About what and what to glue on.
You puzzle over what and how to glue the brick. Some masters advise tile glue, others insist on buying specialized and expensive ones.
Here the solution is this: if there is a specialized glue of the manufacturer of the same name, it is always better to choose just that. It is always designed for a certain load, takes into account the properties of the brick so that it does not change its properties. However, if you choose a “flatter” and lighter plaster brick, regular tile adhesive will do.
Story 3. About the fact that size matters.
We began to layout bricks and thought about what the seam should be. Too small a seam begins to ripple in the eyes, too large – the bricks seem to have scattered, the masters have no consensus, someone is guided by the norms of 1 cm, someone is on what is written on the package – 2 mm.
In practice, we came to the conclusion that the optimal seam thickness is 4-5 mm. So it is possible to achieve that golden mean so that the brick looks as natural as possible.
Story 4. About when “we put a brick, and the seam – ourselves somehow”.
The brick was laid, everything is fine, but when they began to rub it, it began to get dirty. On a white brick it is still uncritical if the glue or grout does not “yellow”, but on red – the color faded, stains spoiled the whole impression. Many masters, knowing this, can offer you to “somehow” rub the seams yourself. There is only one recommendation here – to see them off right away, a competent master always knows how to eliminate “blots” after grouting.
The situation will be saved by a special liquid for cleaning bricks, which seems to “dissolve” white stains. We use Keranet from Mapei or Zementschleier Entferner. But such “folk remedies” as sulfuric, hydrochloric, acetic acids are dangerous to use. The acids can severely damage the brick and destroy its structure.
Story 5. About how to measure seven times, one – cut
Another burning question is where on the wall the brick should begin and how it should end. In all projects, we try to beat only one wall or columns with decorative bricks, and if the edge of the brick falls on the outer corner of the room and joins the wall for painting, there is nothing better and more accurate than cutting the bricks at 45 degrees at the junction.
Not the most successful solution, in our opinion, is gluing only a part of the wall with a brick or binding such a decorative element to the arrangement of furniture (for example, a vertical strip of brick behind the bedside table). Firstly, over time, the shower may require rearranging the furniture, and you will already be tied to the location of the “stripes”, and secondly, a sharp change in the thickness of the wall, as well as the “torn off” and “cut” edge, when only half of the bricks are visible in the middle of the wall doesn’t look very presentable. Whereas a fully lined wall fits perfectly with an adjacent wall and matches a wide variety of paint colors or other materials and textures.