How to Install Brick Veneer
/Loft Kitchenette Tile Backsplash
It’s been SIX MONTHS since my last loft update. What!??? That’s why I’m so excited to report that we finally installed the brick veneer above the kitchenette in the loft! And I can’t wait to show you how we did it. Oh, yeah, and we also installed the kitchenette!
Lucius and I have always had a thing with exposed brick. This is evident in our last house, where we uncovered the brick on the chimney running through our kitchen.
And again with the giant brick fireplace in the living room of our current house.
So, when I was working on the design for the loft and Lucius mentioned he wanted it to look kind of industrial, I knew it would be the perfect opportunity to add more brick! He was definitely on board. Here’s how we did it:
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Materials for Installation
Brick Veneer (we used 6 boxes for our 40 sq. ft. wall)
Loctite Power Grab (we used 5 tubes)
Square Dowel Rods (ours were 3/8 inch)
Tile Saw, Tile Snap Cutter, or even a Handheld Tile Snap Snipper
Prep Work
First thing’s first - I laid down plastic sheeting to protect our countertops. While the installation isn’t terribly messy (just some brick dust), I knew adding mortar to the joints would require plastic anyway. Plus, placing a little bit of a protective barrier on top of the counters added some peace of mind.
Second, we cut a couple of small pieces off one of our dowel rods to use as vertical spacers. The remaining longer dowel rods were used as horizontal spacers.
Third, we set up our laser level on Lucius' camera tripod to make sure our lines didn’t get out of wack. A large, standard level will work too.
Finally, I laid out my first row of bricks to make sure that the pattern made sense.
Aaand at this point, I was ready for a snack. Much to Lucius’ dismay I ran down to the kitchen to get something to eat.
Brick Veneer Installation
With my appetite sated, we were finally able to dive in! This is definitely a DIY you can do solo, but Lucius and I developed a pretty good system together to get a majority of the bricks up on the wall quickly.
We started our first row by placing spacers along the countertop. Then, while Lucius piped Loctite onto the back of each brick in the line I pre-laid, I followed behind him smooshing the bricks onto the wall, being sure to use my vertical spacers as I went.
A good zigzag of Loctite is all you need. Then just wiggle the tile a little as you smoosh it to the wall. It’s also worth noting that we installed our bricks on unfinished drywall, which I read is a-okay to do!
For our design, we used a mixture of General Shale Providence Series brick veneers from Lowe’s in the colors Carbon and Stillwater. The majority of the wall is Carbon, and I strategically peppered in the red Stillwater veneers.
Once we did a couple of rows like this, we decided to dry-lay several rows at once. This helped speed things up and made it easier to see as a whole how the bricks looked together (specifically the pops of red brick).
As you can see, at this point we only worried about installing whole bricks. This part of the process went pretty fast!
One regret I have is not buying more dowel rods. While the Loctite adheres pretty quickly, we found ourselves waiting a minute or two between rows so the prior row could adhere. We would have saved some time if we could have kept a row of spacers on the previously installed row before starting on another.
Cutting Brick Veneer
Once we had most of the whole bricks installed, we shifted our focus to where we would need to cut bricks - at the edges of each row, around light fixtures, and around outlets.
To get our measurements for these bricks, we simply held them up to where they would be installed, marked the cutline, and ran them through the tile saw!
Luckily, we’re fortunate enough to know someone who lent us their wet saw (which cuts the bricks like buttah), but you can use a tile snap cutter too (though I’ve heard the cuts aren’t always as clean).
I don’t recommend cutting all your end pieces at once - here’s why.
Unless you’re REALLY diligent about keeping your bricks perfectly stacked, your design will likely shift left or right slightly on each row. If we had assumed all our rows were perfectly aligned and cut our end pieces all at once, we would have ended up with a bunch of brick pieces that didn’t fit anywhere.
If we had multiple bricks to cut, we measured each one individually and numbered them on the back. Then we wrote the corresponding number in the space it would be installed on the wall. There were still lots of trips to the garage for tile cutting, but this helped minimize that!
Filling in the Gaps - Take 1
After we installed all of our brick, we let it dry overnight. Much to our relief, none of the bricks fell off the wall!
Now, it was time to apply mortar in the gaps. Here’s what you need:
Materials for mortar
Start by adding a little bit of cold water to your bucket. (Warm water will speed up the drying process of the mortar.) Don’t go crazy adding a ton of water or you’ll end up with so much mortar it’ll dry before you can use it all. About 2 inches of water in a 5-gallon bucket made enough mortar for our whole wall.
Next, slowly add mortar. Using the mixing paddle attached to your drill, mix it together a little bit at a time until you reach the consistency of thick pancake batter. Beware - this is a fine line. Too thin and it’ll make a mess everywhere. Too thick and it’ll be impossible to squeeze out of the mortar bag.
Once your mortar is the right consistency, scoop it into your mortar piping bag (a second pair of hands makes this step much easier!). I’ll tell you here and now - a Zip-loc bag CANNOT be used in place of a proper piping bag. How do I know this? Well…
We couldn’t find a piping bag at the hardware store, so we tried to improvise. See exhibit A.
On the left-hand side, you can see where we made a giant mess in our first attempt at applying mortar. In this case, it was WAY too runny and wouldn’t stop spilling out of the piping Zip-loc bag. On the right-hand side we mixed the mortar thicker, but it was so thick, it popped the Zip-loc bag.
This ended day 2 of our tiling adventure in a flurry of sloppy mortar, curse words, and frustration. Don’t be like us.
Filling in the Gaps - Take 2
Once we bought an actual piping bag, we were finally able to apply the mortar!
Applying the mortar was much more labor-intensive than I expected. If I was doing it myself, it probably would have taken a lot longer. Luckily, I had Lucius to help! And he made it look way easy…
A slow and steady application is your best bet. And don’t freak out if you make a bit of a mess - I’ll talk about how to clean that up below.
A couple of hours after we applied the mortar (when it was no longer squishy but more of a sandy texture), we went back in with our brick jointer to scrape off any excess.
Once everything was good and dry, we were able to work on…
Fixing our Mistakes
There were a couple of items that needed to be fixed before we felt like we could call the installation finished:
Cleaning the mortar off the bricks after our disastrous Zip-loc bag attempt went awry.
Removing the tape from under the mortar where it was stuck to the counter.
Let’s start with cleaning up the mortar.
During our panicked attempt at cleaning up the mortar mess we initially made, we ended up with several bricks that were covered with a thin layer of mortar.
Upon researching, we learned mortar could be removed using Muriatic Acid and a wire brush… so that’s what we did!
I mixed the Muriatic Acid with water per the directions (while wearing the appropriate protective gear!) and applied it to the messy bricks. I realized it worked a little better if I soaked the bricks and then let them sit for a minute.
Once I felt like they soaked for long enough, I came back and scrubbed with the wire brush.
Then, I wiped them down with a paper towel. If I didn’t feel like they were clean enough, I just repeated the steps above.
Once our bricks were nice and clean, we turned our focus to cleaning the tape off the counter from under the mortar. Would it have been a better idea to start the first row of bricks flat on the countertop? Possibly. The world may never know.
Luckily, mortar is surprisingly easy to cut/chip away with a utility knife - so that’s what we did. The line isn’t quite as crisp as I would prefer, but it works.
Final Thoughts
Now that the bricks are installed, I realize how much character was missing from this room! I’m really pleased with how it turned out overall. Obviously, we couldn’t wait to install the lights, and now I can’t wait for the finishing touch… shelves! Continue following along to see the final product! And, if you found this tutorial helpful, Pin it for later!
