Fake Brick Wall
One day, I woke up and wanted one of my hallway's walls to be a brick wall. I live in an old apartment building, which is made out of bricks, but I noticed on other walls, that they must have used low quality bricks in the inside walls, so removing the plaster could lead to much dirt and no nice wall, so I didn't go with that option.
I scouted several options like brick wallpapers (yuck!), real bricks (expensive), fake fiberglass bricks (also expensive)... but then, at the office I saw many old foam core boards (KAPA Line), I had salvaged from other projects.
These boards are 5mm thick with coated paper on the front and the back. One side had a print on it and as I peeled it of, it resulted in a nice rough paper surface. So that was, what I was going with.
I scouted several options like brick wallpapers (yuck!), real bricks (expensive), fake fiberglass bricks (also expensive)... but then, at the office I saw many old foam core boards (KAPA Line), I had salvaged from other projects.
These boards are 5mm thick with coated paper on the front and the back. One side had a print on it and as I peeled it of, it resulted in a nice rough paper surface. So that was, what I was going with.
I cut the boards up in many pieces of 6cm x 25cm, 6cm x 12,5cm and some 6cm x [random]cm to add some variation. Then I cut some 1cm strips to use as spacers.
I started by drawing some lines on the wall using a level to guide me. Then I glued the tiles on the wall using tiling adhesive. Since the tiles are very light, they stuck pretty good and didn't come off 'til the glue cured.
Using my spacers I kept adding row after row, randomly picking tiles, but tried to arrange them so they would look realistic. This took about two hours.
I started by drawing some lines on the wall using a level to guide me. Then I glued the tiles on the wall using tiling adhesive. Since the tiles are very light, they stuck pretty good and didn't come off 'til the glue cured.
Using my spacers I kept adding row after row, randomly picking tiles, but tried to arrange them so they would look realistic. This took about two hours.
Next I beat up the edges of the tiles using a rogh rock so it doesn't look too new. Then I started painting the Tiles using a mix of terracotta and black (only a little) and painted the tiles one by one randomly.
The trick is not to paint two neighboring tiles the same way so I jumped rows and colums and then mixed a new batch of color so it started to look natural.
After that was done, I painted the groves grey.
Then I added some weathering with the same grey, some mossy green, yellow and white using a sponge, a brush and my fingers.
Finally I sprayed some grey paint dust around.
That's pretty much it - this resulted in a more drastic redecoration of my hallway, which I will cover in an other 'ible.
The trick is not to paint two neighboring tiles the same way so I jumped rows and colums and then mixed a new batch of color so it started to look natural.
After that was done, I painted the groves grey.
Then I added some weathering with the same grey, some mossy green, yellow and white using a sponge, a brush and my fingers.
Finally I sprayed some grey paint dust around.
That's pretty much it - this resulted in a more drastic redecoration of my hallway, which I will cover in an other 'ible.