Restoring Old Brick Walls

Restoring old brick walls is no easy task. However, you can do this and trust me you’re going to be so happy with your finished results. When thinking about taking on a project like this you need to prepare yourself for all the do’s and dont’s. Do get ready to spend a lot of time, energy, and elbow grease. Don’t expect perfection. Do prepare for the extreme mess your about to make and don’t give up, because your results will amaze you. In this project, my husband and I are restoring the brick walls in a 100-year-old building. We are trying to bring back some of the originality that has been hidden away for decades.

If you have been reading our downtown renovation stories then you have seen what we started with. Below is a picture of where we started in our journey. We have just completed the ceiling restoration (click here for details) and now we are ready to work on restoring the brick wall.

So let’s get started. First, we had to remove the paneling and wood. Once again, we had no idea what was waiting for us behind the paneling. As you can see in the picture below, the brick was not looking promising.

Once everything was removed we were able to get a better idea of how we wanted to restore the brick. Behind the paneling was a thick plaster that covered the brick. A lot of it was cracking and loose in areas if you touched it would simply break off and fall. Not to mention we now had tons of holes in the mortar from where the wood/paneling had been attached to walls.

We decided to leave some of the plaster with exposed brick, but first, we had to get rid of any loose plaster. We started out using hammers and chisels, but did you see how big this wall was? And this plaster was at least an inch thick. So we switched out to the power tools. If you decide to tackle this job make sure to wear a respirator.

Now that we removed all the plaster that was loose and exposed the brick in the areas to bring out the details and character. This is what we were left with.

Here is a picture gallery to show you how amazing this brick was. The details and variations were stunning. After hours and hours of labor to remove the thick plaster that covered the brick I could see my visions coming to life.

After we removed the rubble from the floor we took our shop vac and vacuumed the wall. The issue with the 100+ year old brick is that the mortar used at the time was comprised almost entirely of lime. Fast forward a century later and all that was left between the bricks was dust. My husband had to remove all of the mortar by hand between the bricks where the mortar had completely degraded and crumbled and repoint the wall with new mortar. Once that daunting task was finished we cleaned the brick with muriatic acid and then diluted the brick with water. Now it was time to seal the brick and mortar. We used 5 gallons of original old Thompson Water Seal. We applied several coats. We used a sprayer and a paint roller to apply it. We added custom baseboards and painted everything white to finish. What do you think about how it turned out?

There are a few things that I would like to share with you about having old brick walls. First, while they are beautiful they do take some upkeep. It is very important to ensure the integrity of the bricks. Replace grout lines with a mortar and seal the bricks to help reduce dust. While sealing the brick will tremendously reduce the dust, it will not eliminate it completely. And you may have to reseal your brick and mortar at some point. But in my honest opinion, I would do it all over again.