How To Install Brick Veneer On Fireplace

DIY: BRICKING A FIREPLACE WITH CHEROKEE BRICK- Kristen from White Farmhouse Haven

Betwixt finishing up our dwelling, getting all moved in and having our newborn, I'one thousand finally starting to get dorsum into the swing of things! If you tuned into our Instagram stories shortly before we moved into our house, y'all saw that AJ and I did a ton of end work on our home ourselves. This included bricking our fireplace that is in our living room.

I had the pleasure of getting to partner on this fireplace with my friends over at Cherokee Brick, and let me tell you, they are absolutely amazing!! Some of my favorite partnerships are the ones where you lot not simply work together but build a relationship together. They are an amazing company that treats all of their employees like family. You can learn more than about their visitor'south amazing story on their website here.

AJ and I decided a long time ago that we wanted to become with a traditional brick style for our fireplace in our living room. There are and so many stone options out there, but for us, the red traditional brick mode helped us create a cozy infinite. I had been following Cherokee Brick for some time watching their stories and seeing all the cool things their customers have done, and I just had to achieve out! I'grand then glad I did considering the Sparse Brick selections were amazing!

Information technology was hard to cull, but nosotros narrowed it downwards to three different samples and then ii. The last two were the Andersonville and the Old Macon. The Andersonville had more of a cherry-red tone to it and the Former Macon had a more brown tone to it. I ever planned to do a German Schmear type wait, and then the red-toned Andersonville was the winner for us. The scarlet tone would actually pop through and create a warm, cozy expect, and I loved how bright the white was on these bricks.

At that place are so many brick options with Cherokee Brick, so definitely go bank check out their page to see all the cute options here! I highly recommend getting a sample or seeing the brick in person, considering we actually thought nosotros were going to go with Old Macon until we saw the Andersonville in person!

This post is going to focus on the steps we took on finishing our fireplace, just I volition besides be working on a video to showcase this as well presently.

So…how did we do this? Let's find out!

Outset, like whatever projection, you volition need to measure your space. This is something for every unmarried project I recommend you have multiple measurements. So measure again  When you are putting your listing together for materials, you'll always want to add together in an extra 10-15% to account for whatsoever mistakes made during the process. If y'all plan to do any patterns with brick or with tile, be sure to add together in an boosted 30% instead of ten-15%.

2nd, create your list. Here are the materials and tools we used:

Materials & Tools List:

1. Andersonville Thin Brick
2. Mortar – Nosotros used a white mortar
3. Bright White Grout – We went with the sanded grout
4. Painters record – To use confronting the wall and the flooring, but make sure you pull this off before the grout dries when the time comes
5. Buckets – The ones that each hardware store carries with their name on information technology are perfect, and you will need at least five (I'll explain after in this postal service)
6. Steel Ball Mixing Artillery
7. Dewalt 9-Amp 1/2-in Keyed Corded Drill
8. Trowel
9. Grout bag
10. Plastic cup – This makes mixing the mortar and grout a little easier when you add in the water
11. Sponges – Specifically for grouting
12. Tile spacers – You lot could use really anything for this and we used multiple spacers to get the look nosotros wanted upward the wall
13. Transmission Tile Saw – We used this for any straight cuts on the thin brick
14. Wet Tile Saw – We used this for the complex tile cuts. There are tons of these out there, but delight make sure to take all safety precautions while using this. Both AJ and my brother were very experienced in using this.

Now let's become into a few points almost the fireplace area including the wall and the hearth…

First, since we had a bump out on our wall specifically for the fireplace, we were able to tile directly onto the drywall. Notwithstanding, we did have to create a hearth. AJ built this by using construction lumber and one/four″ James Hardie Backerboard.

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Here is the hearth with the backerboard added.

Making the hearth out of lumber and adding the Backerboard on superlative of information technology allowed usa to add the brick directly to it. This part of the project took about two days to complete and one injury later. AJ really cutting his hand pretty expert when cutting the Backerboard, so from our mistake, make certain yous were some proficient construction gloves when using a knife and cutting this stuff.

Once we got to this bespeak, nosotros actually had to wait quite awhile before we could do anything else. In the concurrently AJ got the trim, doors, and flooring done while the painter painted the whole place. AKA I got MUCH more than meaning during this time (lol).

Bricking the Fireplace:

At this point, we were working on tiling everywhere that needed to be tiled, including the fireplace (using thin brick is very like to tiling). Due to the electricians being quite messy when they install lights, we wanted to wait to install our LVT flooring on the main floor and they come up in one time tile is complete. Then yous will see that we completed near of the fireplace but left the bottom of the hearth to complete until the floor was installed. We did this so there wouldn't be essentially ugly gapping between the floor and the fireplace.

The beauty of using thin brick is we went for the thick grout line look, and this allowed usa to non have to be so precise on where we laid the bricks. The spacing we decided on for grout lines was ane/2″ thick. We still wanted directly lines, but doing this thickness allowed for a piffling more error.

Steps to Laying the Brick:

• Mix your mortar: Have at least two buckets for this stage – i for water and one for mixing your mortar. Nosotros always take three buckets to put the mixer in water and so the mortar doesn't dry to it. You want the mortar to be like a cake batter consistency. Y'all do not water it to be too watery as the bricks will not set.
• Cut your corner tiles for the hearth: We decided to cut the corner thin brick and brand 45 caste angles. We preferred the look of this so we could accept all corner bricks going beyond the hearth (see photo beneath for details)
• Add mortar to the brick and stick your thin brick to the wall: You lot can really do this method or utilise the mortar to the wall and stick the brick to the wall. We did both methods throughout tiling in the house but decided to exercise it this fashion for the fireplace. If you lot choose to employ information technology to the wall, make sure you don't do too large of an area at one time because your mortar will dry.

As yous can meet in the flick on the left, we besides did our "emphasis slice" to a higher place the fireplace to ensure whatever brick around information technology butted upwards to that brick.

• Add spacers: When adding the spacers on the fireplace, we had to sometimes add more to an area because thin brick is not perfectly square. Again, we were going for around 1/2″ grout lines, but our main focus was to keep the brick straight and consistent on both sides of the fireplace. Every bit yous can encounter, we did not add spacers to the brick that laid on top of the hearth as information technology did not motion.
• Mix more mortar: At multiple points throughout bricking the fireplace, you volition need more than mortar. Never mix also much mortar at one time. We always only had the bucket about one/4-1/3 full of mixed mortar.
• Cutting Tile:AJ and my blood brother did have to cut tile with the manual tile saw and a wet saw. The wet saw was used for those corner pieces, and the transmission saw was used for the pieces next to the fireplace unit.
• Adhere the mantel: We attached the mantel earlier we bricked to the height. You tin can see in the higher up photos that we have steel sticking out of the drywall. This is something we added to brand the mantel extremely sturdy. AJ drilled holes into the mantel, added structure adhesive, then we pushed the mantel into place. Then AJ used a level to ensure it was direct.

Once we were able to do the flooring in hither, we were able to finish bricking the fireplace hearth and begin grouting. At this point I was 8 months meaning, so my family was actually helping the states with a lot around the firm including the fireplace.

Grouting the Fireplace with a German Schmear-like Method

Now this is the fun role, seriously. Yeah it's messy, but the grout is what started making the fireplace truly come together. We used some of the same materials we used for the mortar, but instead just had the grout mixture. Now I want to say that there are many different methods to grouting a fireplace and on what people do for the German language Schmear result, but this is what method we chose to do.

• Prep work: Tape off all areas you don't want grout on including the wall, the floor, and the mantel.
• Mix your grout: This is very similar to the mortar but with a different cloth; even so, y'all will definitely want three buckets for this process (make sure they are clean and free of whatever mortar, we use new ones). Have ane bucket of water for your mixer, one saucepan of water for your sponge, and one bucket to mix your grout. You will mix your grout and make certain the consistency is more similar a thick frosting.

• Add your grout to your grout bag: This easily downwards is a 2-3 person task or become yourself something to put your grout bag in like a loving cup and fold over the sides. You will pour the mixed grout into your grout bag almost ii/three full. Retrieve, you don't want your grout to be besides runny or it'll slide correct through the grout pocketbook and make a mess.
• Frost your grout lines: Non going to lie, this is a little hard due to the consistency needing to be thicker with having to grout the vertical grout lines. Only yous will squeeze out the grout into your 1/2″ lines and make full the grout to the tiptop of the thin brick or fifty-fifty spilling over. Do not underfill every bit you demand to have the grout come up to the top. When it spills over, this is where yous volition exist able to come back and smear the grout.

• Wipe the grout with a sponge:Adjacent y'all volition take a clammy sponge and starting time smearing your grout all over. Don't worry about going outside the lines, yous can always remove or add more grout to become the look the fashion you desire it. I took the sponge and mainly focused on flattening the grout to go it level with the brick, and also smearing on summit of the bricks. Then I have my bucket of h2o, wash my sponge, and keep wiping the bricks until I go the grout to look the way I want it on the brick and in-between the bricks.

Ignore the fact that I'1000 non wearing whatever shoes. I didn't program on grouting this solar day just my blood brother was there and we just decided to showtime! And then my Birkenstocks had to sit this one out since it was messy.

We kept doing this process until nosotros had the whole fireplace grouted. Every bit you lot see in the above picture, we didn't do a full High german Schmear but showed more brick. We did this with the fireplace and then the cherry-red tones would actually warm up the room. Equally you can see in that location are a lot of white walls, so nosotros wanted some contrast.

And there y'all accept it! One completed fireplace that we did all on our own. Something to keep in heed, nosotros take NEVER bricked or tiled a fireplace before. Using the sparse brick in our house was the first time we ever worked with that besides. It goes to show that with a piffling flake of exercise on DIY work in our old house, it really helped prepare us to do all the of things in this house.

Doing things like this fireplace is going to be something we cherish while we are building a family in this habitation. Every single member of our immediate families and a few friends helped us through these projects. We had so many laughs, all learned something new, and created memories that will concluding a lifetime.

Nosotros didn't plan on having our picayune daughter while building this home, merely that's what happened and it made a lot of things more than difficult. Nosotros had to consummate things at a super rushed footstep compared to what the professionals would have done, and this required AJ to work on the firm for 12 hours a day every day for multiple weeks. It wasn't easy, merely we did take fun making memories and we wouldn't alter a affair. Now nosotros are in our home with our little bundle of joy and continuing the projects.

Thank you lot so much for tuning into this blog post! I actually hope you enjoyed information technology and that it is able to help you with your own DIY experiences. Be sure to tag @whitefarmhousehaven if you try out these steps! Don't hesitate to send me an electronic mail with whatever questions at whitefarmhousehaven@gmail.com.

Source: https://www.cherokeebrick.com/diy-bricking-a-fireplace-with-cherokee-brick/

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