This is my husband Aaron’s 1st post! :D
I’m semi-handy, I guess, and I’ve never attempted a full-scale home renovation project because I never owed a home until now. In our new place, we had a damaged wall, so I decided to do the stupidest thing I have ever attempted to do (to date) and expose the brick under the damaged plaster. Exposing a brick wall isn’t fun or easy and creates a terrible mess. I wouldn’t choose to do it again, but I am glad I did it because it saved us some money.
If you’re considering exposing a brick wall in your house, you may be asking yourself the same things I did, like, “Can I expose the brick in my house?”, “Should I expose a brick wall?”, “How much does it cost to expose a brick wall?”, “Does exposed brick add value?”, “How do you make an exposed brick wall look good?”, “Should I seal my exposed brick wall?”, “How do you finish exposed brickwork?”, “Should I paint my exposed brick wall?”, “Does exposed brick make a room cold?”
Exposing a brick wall is easy to do, and adds a ton of rustic texture and character, so if you’re mildly handy, have three to four days you want to kill, an urge to expose a brick wall, and have the guts to give it a try. Here are the steps I took to expose our red brick wall for about $120.
The Unhandy Man’s Guide to Exposing a Brick Wall…
The Essential Tools for Exposing a Brick Wall:
- Hammer
- Putty knife $.99
- Crowbar $2.50
- Respirator (the paper ones won’t cut it. I borrowed one from a friend)
- Gloves $1.19
- Eye protection (also borrowed from a friend)
- Oscillating saw $19.99
- 3 x Sponges $1.99 each
- 2 x Expanding foam (it’s called Great Stuff) $5.00 each
- Joint compound $5.15
- Plastic tubs (we already had them around)
- 4 x Wire brushes $2.99 (for a set of 4)
- Old vacuum or shop van (already had)
- A lot of plastic sheeting $1.50-$3.89 (cost varies depending on the mils/thickness)
- Brick sealer $26.99
- Sander $9.99
Key Things to Remember When Exposing a Brick Wall:
- Have confidence
- Prep, a lot
- It will take longer and be far messier than you think it will
How to Expose a Brick Wall:
1. Pick the wall you want to expose (an exterior wall)
First, after picking your wall, drill a pilot hole to be sure there is actually brick back there. After you are sure, expose a small section (perhaps a square foot) to be sure the brick is something you want the public to see. If not, stop there and consult someone other than me on how to patch a hole, because I don’t know how to do that and (perhaps stupidly) chose to proceed.
2. PREP (a lot!)
Use your plastic sheeting to completely seal up your workspace, and have plastic tubs ready for constant plaster removal. You don’t need to be Norm Abrams in order to expose a brick wall; you need to have the confidence to see it through. During my brick exposure escapade, my confidence left me several times, namely when I saw the outside through a gap in the brick and the other time when I realized I had no clue what I was doing. The second thing to remember (perhaps it’s more important than the first), is to prep, prep, prep. Prep. Your. Ass. Off. The more time spent prepping, the more you will love your life after it’s over. Quarantine the area you are exposing, like Ebola just hit your house. Walls, ceiling, floor, everything. And then, when you think you are done, add more plastic everywhere. This can’t be stressed enough. I read up about exposing brick, and heard that it’s extremely messy but I took it too lightly. Hear me now- it’s dirtier than you can imagine (or have ever dared to imagine). During the brick-exposing process, I had a full-scale breach of my quarantined area, and the clean-up cost me valuable time when I was forced to re-quarantine the next day. When you’re prepping, put cardboard directly under the wall because plaster chunks will come raining down, and 3 mils of plastic sheeting will not go the distance. You’ll want the plastic tubs nearby so you can clean them as you go. Plaster gets very heavy, very quickly, so clearing it out often will save you back-breaking work later on.
3. Cut out all the trim
After your room is properly prepped and you are geared up (don’t wear anything you care about and plan to put your entire outfit right into the trash after the project) the next step is to stare that wall down and swing your crowbar. Actually, that’s not true. Take your oscillating saw ($19.99 at Harbor Freight) and cut out all the trim..along the walls, ceiling, and windows (if you have any). This will take a while, but it gives you a nice clean break at the corners.
Quick side note on Harbor Freight..if you are an UN-handy person working a limited budget, Harbor Freight is about to become your best friend. It’s cheap, super cheap. The power tools are pretty crappy, but again, if you are un-handy, chances are you won’t be doing many renovations anyway, so you don’t need the best. Unfortunately, they don’t have everything so you’ll ultimately be going to Home Depot during this operation, but start the journey at the Freight and get what you can….
Back to the wall.
4. Your precise, calculated blows
You can’t go ape on the wall, don’t even think about going ape. You must use precise, calculated blows on the drywall. I heard a crowbar was the best, but I found its distant cousin the putty knife to be more effective. Starting at your test area take your hammer (and this is the only time you’ll be able to Mike Tyson the wall) pound around in a 1 square foot radius. This leads me into another excellent point, work in small areas. Don’t jump around from spot to spot. Attack this wall with calculated precision. After you pound the wall, work your putty knife between the plaster and brick as far as it will go and then pry. Hopefully big chucks will fall. Don’t expect this to be easy. Some sections will come off in huge, glorious chucks. Other areas will be so much trouble you’ll want to cry, but by that time your tear ducts will so clogged with plaster dust that a 1000-year-old mummy has a better chance of producing a tear than you do. This leads me to my next point. When you get frustrated, it’s tempting to start wailing away on the wall with your crowbar, but this is exactly what the wall wants you to do; it really doesn’t want to be exposed. It’s cozy under an inch and a half of plaster. It’s been like that for the last 100 years. It doesn’t want to be revealed and it will fight you at every turn. Going ape with the crow will do nothing for the cause, because if plaster is not in big chunks, it’s in dust form. And when it goes dust, it permeates everything and goes into every orifice of your body. So after you have cleared all the plaster off your wall, you’ll notice it doesn’t look very good.
5. Scrub the wall with wire brushes
The next step is to take wire brushes (in various sizes, the smallest being toothbrush size, the biggest 8 inches) and scrub the wall hard! This, unfortunately, produces tons of dust and dirt, but it can’t be avoided.
6. Vacuum
Okay, congrats…the extremely messy part is done, but you are far from completing this project, which by now I’m sure you are regretting. Now is a good time to grab your vacuum (this project will destroy any normal vacuum, so be sure it’s old and pretty much useless or it’s a shop vac) and vacuum up all the dust that has settled on the baseboard, windows sills, etc.
7. Sponge down the newly exposed brick
After the dust has been somewhat cleaned up, grab a bucket of warm water and a large sponge and wipe down your newly exposed brick.
8. Fill holes and gaps in the bricks with mortar
Hopefully, you don’t have large cracks, but if you do, you can do one of two things…lie to yourself (because, at this point, you want the project to be done) and say, “Hey, the cracks give the wall character!”, and leave them alone or get scared (like I did) that the bricks will start falling out, which will lead to my house collapsing. So, if you don’t want your house to collapse, grab some mortar repair (cement filler) and fill in the cracks. You’ll sleep better. And yes, the mortar won’t look like the 100-year-old mortar you just exposed, but at least your house won’t fall down (which it probably wouldn’t anyway).
9. Fill gaps along the trim with expanding foam
After all that, grab a can of this magical foam stuff that expands when you spray it and fill in all the seams around baseboards, windows, ceiling, etc.
10. Trim off excess foam and sand
Wait for the foam to cure, then buzz the excess hardened foam with your oscillating saw, sand it smooth, throw some joint compound over it, and guess what ?!! …you are still not done. Oh No. You’ll be working on the edge work far longer than you working on anything during this process, and they will still look like crap. To date, I am still trying to get my edges looking good.
11. Clean the bricks, again
Next, clean the brick one more time with a sponge to get any remaining dust off.
12. Seal the bricks
And now, it’s brick sealant time (the sealant was the most expensive part of this project) to keep out moisture. I heard a sprayer works best, but since I didn’t have one of those, I used a paintbrush and sponge. It’s tempting to rush through this process, but the sealant is key to long-term success, especially if you don’t want to be cleaning up mortar dust for the rest of your life. Use the paintbrush to get into all the nooks, crannies, and mortar (trace around each brick), and use the sponge for the face of the bricks. You can measure success when you can wipe the bricks with the sponge, and you don’t hear any more mortar dust falling off and hitting the plastic below.
13. The clean-up
Now for the clean up (which will hopefully be a breeze if you prepped properly), meticulously tear down your plastic slowly and precisely to keep the dust from spreading. Sweep up the dust that inevitably got through, bandage up your bruised and bloody fingers, kick back and realize that it looks pretty good for not being a pro-pin-tucker, and you did, and you did it for cheap. Congrats. You now have a beautiful brick wall.
One last thing I forgot to mention… this project will leave you battered, bruised and unbelievably sore. At one point, my hands went numb from overuse, and at another point, I lost the ability to reach above my head. After the first day (the hardest manual labor), I lay in bed and begged Anna for any type of massage she was willing to give.
P.S. I never mentioned using the crowbar, it’s really not needed, but it feels good to have it on standby. You’ll inevitably, in bouts of frustration, reach for the crowbar thinking you’ll show this walls who the boss hogg is and take a few heated whacks to realize the crow is too big and bulking for this project and that the putty knife is actually perfect even though it might feel slower.
Have you ever exposed a brick wall? Do you have any tips on how to do it? Do you think you might try exposing a brick wall?
So. . . I’m going to be tackling exposing the brick in my studio, and everyone keeps asking me if it’s glued on, or whatever. Was your drywall in this story glued on? (because mine is). Does that make the steps any different?
By drywall, do you mean the “plaster”? Drywall is different that plaster. I’m not sure how the plaster is actually adhered to the brick, but whatever adhesive method is used, the plaster will not come off with a fight. On this project, before striking plaster, I only had to contend with about 106 years worth of paint and wall paper layers.
Looks great – nice work! Did you have to go outside and repair the mortar too? What other issues have you discovered in an older house? Did you have any other freak out moments where you thought that maybe you went over your head with such an old home or do you absolutely love it?
I didn’t need to go outside to repair any mortar, I only repaired the mortar on the inside. I did, however, on very deep cracks use the spray foam that i mentioned to fill up most of the gap, than i use the mortar repair compound.
Oh, you are such a stud. Really. Reallyreallyreallyreally.
I have been happily married for more than two decades and men like you make women like Anna and I the envy, The. Absolute. Envy. of women around us.
Of course my husband also hateshateshates do-it-yourself stuff, especially if it requires straight cuts and precise angles (just forget it!), or plumbing, but he likes to save those dimes too, and I am not studly enough for some of that stuff, so he has to do it.
Pampering helps.
i was just telling my hubby today that–wether he likes it or not– it is quite sexy that is is relatively handy compared to the other men i know (he just built a shed in our backyard!) and that i am very lucky to have him (and save so much moola in the meantime!)
We have a little joke .. I squeeze his arm muscles and say “oooo aaaah!”. Whenever he does something handy. It works for helping around the house too. :D
niiice;) something about those handy man clothes on him i really like…
you are VERY lucky! i’ve got to agree with you, it is a sexy quality;)
gotta love those handy husbands;)
WOW. That is some really kick butt moves. Jealous!
homeboy has got some skillz, no doubt ;)
It might end up being a total pain in the rear, but I love love love the look of exposed brick! So cool!
me too! it turned out gorgeous! it was totally worth the trouble (says the girl who didn’t work on it;)
Just here to say that I support your invokation of Norm Abrams
stupendous! this is a terrific article and rather inspiring. though we all know who would be doing the work (not me. my hubby). not sure if i could get him to commit to something like this right now but we have a wall in our dining room (plaster and lathe) that’s practically begging to be torn down. bravo, aaron!
that would be so cool in a dining room! let me know if you decide to do it or need aaron to come over to show y’all how it’s done;)
Love your site, and while I don’t have any exposed brick projects right now, I did pin it for future use. Which leads me to the suggestion of adding the little pin it button to the bottom of your post along with tweets. I actually came across your site through pinterest as well. I guess you’re just pinnable!
Hey Cari, Thanks for the suggestion. All those buttons should’ve appeared at the bottom of the post. If they’re not there than there’s a problem going on. Thanks for the heads-up! :)
LOVE the writing style… “don;t go ape with the crow” hahahaha… Looking forward to more DIY home posts!
he’s pretty hilarious;)
“pEEk” = take a look
Pingback: Exposed bricks: show me what you’re made of | Paint chart joy
Do you find that it is cold or your heating bills have increased with the exposed brick?? I want to expose an exterior wall but fear that it may make the house really cold and hard to keep warm and cozy in the winter.
Alright so we just undertook this project and it’s all your fault! ;)
I have a question and I’m hoping with your experience and having ‘been there done that’ you might be able to give some advice.
When we exposed the brick, we didn’t remove the baseboards… So, naturally there’s some roughed up plaster directly behind the baseboard and you can see that rough edge since there isn’t plaster over the brick. Did you guys use the expanding foam there as well?
If you have any advice I would LOVE it. I’ve tried googling and I just keep coming back to your blog.
Thanks,
Jess
Hi Jess,
I cleaned out as much plaster as I could behind the baseboard then filled it with expanding foam. After the foam cured I buzzed off the top of it using my oscillating saw and sanded it as flush as possible. I then used joint compound over the sanded down foam to even everything out. After the compound dried I again sanded it smooth and add a fresh layer of paint to the baseboard. Depending on how wide your gap is you might be able to forgo the expanding foam and fill it in with joint compound only. But I had a pretty big gap so that’s why I used the expanding foam.
Good luck…Hope this helps!
jess-
Its a small photo and won’t help much, but if you look close at the one above that says “cement filler” you can see the expanding foam between the baseboard and the wall.
Aaron
Thanks so much, the clarification is very helpful! I thought that was what you did based on the photos but I just wanted to be sure. I’ve had others suggest the same thing. How has it held up?
Jess –
No problem. Its’s held up well, especially around the baseboards, but truthfully doing the “edge” work is the hardest part of the whole project and it takes time to get it to look good.
Aaron
I’m exposing a brick wall in my room now and soon realized what I thought was plaster was partially concrete (in a vertical column from what I think used to be a chimney). If anyone else runs into a fun surprise like that, I found that a rotary hammer with a chisel bit will be your best friend. Home Depot rents them out for about $60/day (just make sure it has a hammer only function). You could save some money by buying a mason’s chisel, but the rotary hammer will probably save a dozen hours of work
I’m curious what product you used for your sealer. We have a couple exposed walls in a new rental property and have not been able to decide on one.
what product did you use to seal the bricks? Im looking for something with a low lustre and it looks like you found one. Thanks.
I removed plaster to expose brick walls in two entire rooms, and it was a doozy. Two things were different for me 1. I didn’t have to worry about sealing everything off because we were gutting the entire floor (but my roommate left the door open to the third floor once and both of our bedrooms got covered in dust, yuck) 2. My tools of choice were a HAMMER and CROW BAR and that’s it. I would hammer at an angle upward to loosen the plaster, and then the plaster would either fall off in chunks or I would be able to get my crow bar behind it and easily pry off big chunks.
Thank you for sharing your experience & instruction. I was trying to find out if my wall between my kitchen & living room was load baring or not & I couldn’t find any studs with my metal/wood stud finder, yet @ any point could not hammer through a 3″ finishing nail, so I decided to investigate & found brick over 120 yrs/old. I only exposed about a 12×12 area & put the refidgerator back until I was a little more informed. I must be nuts, but after reading your instruction, I decided to give it ago, on both sides, kitchen & living room, I think! maybe next spring, when it’s not too hot or cold, because, of the mess. I know your not exaggerating, because, with just my little 12×12 area, the amount of debre was unreal & I quickly cleaned it before everyone got home, because if anyone would have seen all of that from that little area, I know I would be alone on this vote. I felt like I found a treasure & am willing to go for it. By the way, your wall looks great! Job well done
I recently exposed the brick in my living room. It was the wall that joins my neighbor and myself together. I was thinking about doing my one wall in my bathroom but it’s an outside wall. Does plaster provide any insulation at all against cold weather?
We just exposed 14 meter by 5 meters of our lounge and dining room wall, and due to the pipes exposed in the wall thats holding the plug cables we cut slate into thin pieces and claded to cover it up which looks great! However the wire brushing to take off excess plaster is way to hard for a wall this big so i think the electic rotator-drill with the wire bristles should do the trick ( im praying) after reading your step by step i had a good laugh and happy to have come across it. Thanks for your help and the laugh.
I haven’t done a job like this for a few years, but for any job requiring plaster/render removal I find a lump hammer and mortar chisel invaluable for remarkably accurate, once you get the hang of it, and easy chipping off of more stubborn bits. Let’s you feel a bit Michelangelo as well :)
You are hilarious. Thanks for the article. greetings from England
Well, you’ll be happy to know that your post is still inspiring people to expose brick behind plaster. I just spent numerous hours, spread over a week, exposing a brick chimney in my kitchen. All your advice was bang on, none more so than having confidence to continue. Oh, and the mess. The one piece of advice I didn’t heed well enough was sealing off everything with plastic. There was brick and mortar dust everywhere. It took as long to clean up as to remove the plaster. I even had some in my belly button.
After removing plaster, the best way to clean the bricks is by acid etching them, sometimes called patio cleaner, this will bring the bricks up very clean without the mess, apply with a old roller or a brush, (make sure the room is well ventilated as when the wall is drying it can corrode any metals in the room). This method brings out the colour shades in old bricks wonderfully (when dry). If you have gaps between door frames or windows, mix lime mortar to fill them. This can also be used to re-point any big gaps between the bricks (concrete mortar is not suitable if the original mortar is lime). When finished wait till it has dried a little then brush of with a soft brush and water to get a professional finish, this again will stain the bricks with mortar so just acid etch again . Lime mortar can be bought in putty form or powder, the powder form is easiest to use work out roughly how much you will need at one part lime to three parts builders sand, then measure the lime into a tub add water to a thick paste mix then leave for 24 hrs or at least two hours to soak, then add sand and mix.
Loved reading this! I’m working on a similar wall in my house. Finding humor in the frustration of it all is so helpful! Thanks for writing this!
My Husband and I just read this post… we are about to expose our brick wall. Could not stop laughing… to the point of tears. Definately related to Aarons doom day approach to the job… could swear my husband wrote it. Ha hah
I am a huge fan of exposed brick walls and just found one place I could actually give it a try.
Sounds weird, but I feel even more excited of doing so now that I read your article. It looks like a real pain, but I am sure it feels even better afterwards when you’ve done it yourself!
And I will ignore any comment saying otherwise until I am done with mine, haha.
Good job, and thanks for the description and advice.
Cheers for the awesome write up mate. F**kin funny! I’m staring at a wall right now considering whether to expose its inner workings and came across this… hmmm… do I? Don’t I?…
Awesome job and a fun read. I need a wall exposed but not for an aesthetic reason but because it’s damp and needs to dry out. I’m quite handy but thanks to your great article will be calling an expert. Otherwise me and Mr C.R Owbar may just become too involved and voila – no damp problem as no wall left! Anna you’re a lucky lass!
Are you finding any issues with filling in just the areas where there are holes and cracks in the mortar? I’m finding a lot of information on repointing on the internet but I’m not really looking to redo all of the mortar…
Your wall looks great! Our wall is finally exposed, cleaned and ready to seal! Whew! I’m curious to know what product you used to seal your wall and if you are still happy with the results. We, like you, are hoping to keep brick and mortar dust off our floors and baseboards . Thanks!
Hey Susan, We are still super thrilled with the results and the brick walls (we’ve since done 2 others!) add just enough character to our house to make it stand out! We LOVE them! My husband said that he used an outside brick/patio sealer. He said there are different finishes. I believe we have the matte version so we could keep the brick looking as natural as possible.
Ana is the lustre of the sealer low? If possible can you post the specific brand/name of the sealer? Thanks!
I’m getting ready to HIRE this done. I have a guy I pay $10 an hour and he already exposed a corner in the showroom of my furniture store because a leak from the roof caused the plaster around the brick to become brittle and it was easier to just tear it down. I laughed all the way through your article. I love your sense of humor. Your exposed wall looks great! I’m hoping mine looks just as good.
Excellent job. If you get tired of DIY’s try writing. You’re good. I’m about to expose a chimney. Pray for me. Kitts good that will do
Thanks
Thanks! I hope it goes well!
Thanks for such a great run down!
1) Are there different colors/textures for cement filler? Did you have trouble with matching your new filler to the existing mortar?
2) What kind of sealant did you use? It seems there are many different sheens, I’m looking for one that is protectant but that you don’t really notice is there. Pointers?
Hey! Jones, this is the perfect idea of the exposed brick wall, I watched complete videos this is an amazingly great job.
Thanks for sharing great ideas!!!
This is fantastic (your writing and your process). I have one tip. I exposed a brick chimney in my 100-year-old house. The guy at the hardware store recommended sealing the brick with shellac to give it the old look I wanted. Shellac has been around as long as my house. I found I could paint the mortar with amber shellac to give it a lovely amber color. I painted the shellac on the mortar with a small paintbrush then whipped it off the brick. After two coats dried, I gave the entire chimney and mortar two coats of clear shellac (Zinzer Bulleseye worked great). It turned out just super. On to a wall in a new property, I’ll use all your tips. Thanks!
Thank you for the tip!
Great look on your brick wall, Aaron & Anna, (behind every grubbed out handyman, there’s an awesome wife motivating him on). Thoroughly enjoyed the documentary. There’s something about bringing an “old world” feel into a home that defies description- a love of history perhaps, holding on to a time when quality and durability counted for something, the need for self-flagellation …whatever, who knows why, but the pay-off is something to enjoy and cherish for years to come, and besides, I’ll bet your the only one on the block with one.
So reading through this I’m reminded not only of the projects we’ve undertaken on our own beach cottage, but of what I have to look forward to as I contemplate (yes, careful patient planning (w/o hammer in hand), was one of the earlier lessons I learned), exposing our fully encased chimney, which straddles the Living room/ Kitchen area, to the world from whence it’s been sealed all these 92 years. Valuable tips and walk-through of the process, massage tips, etc…
Your article, like all generously shared first hand experiences where the gritty (no pun intended) realities get first billing, was and will be, invaluable as I (uh…we) commence yet another labor of love project.
BTW, if you’re looking for any “real world” experience by taking on a chimney project to add to your skill set…..give me a call!
Thank you both,
Ron Moody
WOW Thank you so much for this comment, Ron, it’s hilarious. And yes, I agree, it’s a painful process! ;)
That’s nice
I done it several to before moving to new house .
I always check the bricks hidden behind the paint.
anyways it was great article thanks for your time.
Hi Toby. Thanks!
That’s nice
I done it several to before moving to new house .
I always check the bricks hidden behind the paint.
it was great article thanks for your time researching on this.
thanks for the honesty! We took down a fireplace (bc it was in an awkward position in a small kitchen/middle of a wall that was built- and my husband was positive he had nerve damage in his hands! We are about to expose 2 of our fireplaces….maybe 1 after we do it! Hopefully it comes out as beautiful!
Oh, I’m sorry about the issues, no wall is worth pain. I hope your husband recovers to continue with the project safely with beautiful results! :)
My husband and I exposed a brick wall in our wedding venue. The wall is about 70 feet long, so everything you said is true, nose hairs covered in dust, even with wearing a mask, clothes destroyed by dust, 55 gallon trash can destroyed by 100 year old plaster (the building was built in 1894). We are still not completely done, but we only have about 10 feet to go, so not bad for amateurs. It was worth it. The only part I hate is once the brick was exposed, there’s a part in center of the wall that looks different than the other part of the wall. I am hoping that once I clean up the wall, it will blend in better. If not, I will consider adding some “orangeish” martar to help it blend better. I just don’t want to take away from the integrity of the wall. Either way, I am excited and can’t wait to see the finished product.
Congratulations on your wedding! What an exciting project, hard, as you said, but with so little to go…
Thank you for sharing. Let us know about your final results! :)
What did you use for the sealer? We tried a spray can but it changed the color to look darker, took the “orange color” away from the original – making us want to wire brush it again and start over.
Hi Wesley, there are some sealers that will maintain the original color a bit better. But always expect some darkening.
Dude. I’ve been a general contractor for 13 years. We just bought a brownstone in St Louis that I can finally have some exposed brick. Did a lot of google searches. Yours was the best. Not anywhere near done.
Hi Ken! Thank you so much. How flattering!
Have a lovely weekend.
Keep up the great work! Thank you so much for sharing a great posts.
Thank you for coming by, Tom!
Hello! Loved this piece — I’ve been contemplating exposing the brick in my kitchen for a while now. My main concern is what it might mean in terms of warmth, since it’s an exterior wall and it’s in east-central Massachusetts. Have you all noticed any considerable differences in warmth? It’s a 100 year old house and there’s a steam radiator on the wall I’d be exposing. I can’t seem to find consensus in my research as to whether a plaster wall has much of an insulation effect. Thanks for sharing your story — I hope to make my own exposed brick happen soon!
Hi Matt. I’m very glad you liked the post. You have a very good question. In my knowledge, the type of brick is important. If the construction is old it’s probably better as an insulator. The plaster does not offer a lot of it.
However, I think the best person to consult is someone who works in creating energy-efficient housing, as they will know more about specific materials.
Are you part of our Facebook community? Your questions could truly benefit us all. Here’s the link: SpendingFastersGroup.com
how was your heating and cooling bill affected by exposing the brick wall and not have the insulation? Did it double you electric bill???
Hi Liz, thank you so much for your question. Insulation is certainly something to consider. It depends on where you live and where the wall is in your home.
Hi Aaron, just found your post. Very detailed. Exactly what I like. I’m about to tackle one of my walls….I’m not one of those lucky ladies that have a handy guy around so I tackle this stuff myself. Did you use anything to seal where the plaster meets the brick? If you did, would ypu consider posting a close-up pic? I’m mostly wondering about the gap between the two different walls, not the wall and ceiling so much.
Thanks in advance.
You should write more! Loved your use of metaphors, lol. This instructional piece, became a fun, enjoyable read.
Seriously, had this been a paperback, it would have been a serious page turner.
Thank you so much, Francine.
We definitely try to have fun. Have a great week!
I read your post on exposing a brick wall and wanted to say thank you for the fantastic article. I needed some help with this project but it turns out that was an easy job once I found your guide. Awesome work!
Hi Gary. It certainly is not small work in some cases. Glad we could help.
;)
Just did this in my house. If anyone wonders, with a large hammer drill (I have a old hilti te 12), you can do a job of sluffing off the render like this in 20 minutes.
Ah! Good to know! Thanks for the tip!