How to age a brick wall: tips
The walls of the old brick gain a new sound. Previously, they hid under decorative trim, hiding a modest, not too beautiful appearance. Today, such straightforward building materials can be the main focus of the room. How to make old brick walls with your own hands, the article will tell.
The content of the article
What methods are used when aging a brick
Antique brickwork is a badly damaged surface with:
- Chips on the bricks.
- Cracks at the seams of the masonry.
- The lack of some bricks in the wall.
- Other signs appearing from exposure to time.
At home, bricking can be aged in several ways.
To do this, you need to purchase:
- Hammer drill.
- Hammer.
- Big chisel.
- The grinder.
- Large emery paper.
- Blowtorch.
If desired, this list can be supplemented with those tools that are at hand: sharp objects that can damage the brick according to the appropriate style. The basis can be artificial tiles, with its help you can make an imitation resembling a brick wall, but much thinner than the real one, which will save free space in the house.
An alternative could be another method: the use of sandblasting equipment. This is a more effective way, requiring less time and effort to implement. But the complexity of this method lies in the need to use appropriate equipment, the price of which is quite high and not everyone can purchase it, if you want to get old brick walls in the room.
How to age a brick wall in a simple way
Tip: When performing work, you should avoid uniform processing of the surface of the brick, with natural aging, chaotic wear of the material occurs.
Work instruction:
- Angle grinder or grinder the outer layer of the brick wall is removed, as in the photo.
Using these tools, you can get increased roughness of the material.
- Work continues with a hammer and chisel. They simply crack off the excess hardened mortar in the joints of the masonry. Additionally, with different impact forces in different places, the angular faces of the brick are knocked down.
- Further, with natural aging, the wall collapses in the joints between the bricks. For this, punchers make random recesses in them.
Tip: To speed up the process on the main wall, several bricks should be knocked down to 1/2 of their thickness. From this, its strength will not suffer, but will gain the enhanced effect of antiquity. This can not be done on tiles made under a brick.
- Blowtorch dark spots are created, and then these areas are treated with sandpaper, and preferably grinder, achieving more uniform shades.
- Over the entire surface, the brick wall is treated with coarse sandpaperto add scuffs.
The main difficulty in processing a wall with a grinder is to ensure an adequate level of aging of brickwork.
How to use color for aging masonry
When drawing up a work plan for aging brick, it must be borne in mind that the natural process should be reflected in the color.
When performing work, you will need:
- Paint several colors to get the right shade.
- Roller (seePaint rollers: consider in detail).
- Sponge.
The seams on the old masonry have a darker color.
In artificial conditions, to obtain the appropriate effect, you can use acrylic paint of a suitable shade.
For this:
- The coating should be applied with a sponge so that uneven coloring can be achieved.
- When planning wall painting from brick or tiles in lighter shades, it is recommended to use a conventional roller, and in this case it is necessary to apply paint in small portions, a dry tool.
- Excess composition is removed with a sponge. In this case, you need to make sure that there are no smudges on the wall.
You can get a mossy effect on masonry.
For this:
- The surface is slightly tinted with a greenish or earthy hue.
- This should be done with a sponge so that the imitation of moldiness is only partially visible.
The final stage of all the described processes should be the application of a deep penetration primer on the surface of a wall imitating old brickwork. This will prevent dust from settling from the brick in the future and significantly reduce the risk of wall shedding.
How a brick wall ages with stucco
Special building skills do not require methods of aging a brick wall with a blowtorch and paint. But they are well known.
A more complex process, when creating the effect of an old brick wall, is the use of regular or decorative plaster of such colors as:
- White.
- Light gray.
- Beige.
In this case, against its background, the brick looks in contrast.
Process technology includes:
- The wall is partially covered with plaster so that it looks like crumbled from time to time.
- Only those bricks that protrude from the plaster artificially age, using the methods described above.
With crumbling plaster, brickwork looks original and spectacular. And to make such a wall is quite easy on its own.
Tip: Care must be taken to ensure that the plaster does not fall off completely.
If possible, a few bricks can be pulled out of the masonry from above on the diagonal, then the wall itself will look like it is ruined, and the house will be its own ruin. At the same time, aging of bricks can be performed from the front and end parts, and the collapsed wall will look more natural.
Tip: Do not remove the bricks from the middle or bottom, otherwise the wall may simply collapse.
Anyone can create a work of art on ordinary brickwork by simple methods. Visually aging a brick with improvised tools and materials is not difficult, you only need a great desire, the presence of imagination and free time.
An aged brick wall can be made a separate element of the interior, which can be decorated with paintings, old black and white photographs, and an old mirror. The parts protruding after the wall collapses can be used as shelves, for example, to put indoor flowers on them. The ruins of an ancient temple or castle, which were lost in the jungle, will resemble a masonry entwined with a vine.
You can learn more about the aging process of masonry by video in this article.
