How I painted faux brick walls in the Man cave:
I wanted an industrial warehouse looking wall and I wanted a white washed look. I like the gray and white, so I chose Black and White paint – That’s it! Best part, all of the paint was left over from other projects so it was essentially free!
Our basement walls were poured using a form that made the walls look like brick, so all I had to do was paint them!
Step 1 – paint all exposed concrete walls white. I had plenty of paint for this, thanks to the builder leaving a 5 gallon bucket of white primer, Thanks Kyle! As you can see, I wasn’t too worried about getting it in all the cracks and crevices, I knew I would be adding more paint later.
Step 2 – randomly choose some bricks to be painted black.
Step 3 – I used a dry brush technique to lighten the black and darken the white – so my concrete wall started to look like a painted brick wall. As I said before all I used was black and white paint.
To dry brush (barley dip your brush tip in the paint and dab it on the wall) I added white paint to the black bricks and covered it in until I achieved the color I wanted
Then using the same brush, I lightly dipped it into the black paint and I dry brushed it on the white bricks to add various tones of gray. I repeated this process until the wall was covered. By alternating between the black and white paint as you go, it gives you various colors of gray.
The process was time consuming and messy, but easy. You don’t have to be exact, just have fun with it. If you get a little out of control you can always go back and clean up your lines with a quick swipe of white paint. The part I love the most about this process – if I think it is too dark, I keep adding dry brush white to lighten it up! You can see more pictures of the finished space here.
Supplies I used:
White paint
Black paint
Dry brush
Paint roller
Paint pan liner
P.S. – I love to paint, but hate cleaning brushes, rollers and paint pans. My solution, I buy cheap brushes, rollers and paint pan liners and I throw it all away when I am finished with the project! (if I don’t think I will finish the project the same day, I store my wet brushes in a zip lock bag)!
Looks great!
Thanks Tammie!
Did you have to go back on your work to lighten or darken any squares, or would that be a mistake? I’m not as artistic as you, so little worried it will look good. By the way your walls look fantastic, better than dozens on Google images or Pinterest.
Kent,
Thank you for the compliment. I did go back and lighten some of the bricks. My best advice is to use the dry brush technique I describe in the post. Don’t be afraid of the paint. If you get it too light, add a little black and if it’s too dark go back over it with white! Worst case, paint it all white and start over! Good luck.
Love this!!! Definitely going to recommend this to a friend!
Thanks Steph! I hope both you and your friend will continue to follow me! I have so much more to share!!
Looks awesome! I am looking to do this to our basement as we have the stamped concrete wall as well. I have just a few questions. Was it just a basic white primer you used for the initial coat? Did you have to fill any pockets with caulk or anything before painting? Lastly, for the black and white paint, was it just a flat paint or something else? Thanks so much!
Hi Adam,
I used a flat primer and would suggest using flat black and white also, it will make the bricks look more realistic. I didn’t prep the walls at all, however ours were in pretty good shape.
Good Luck!