How to Install Faux Brick Panels: Creating a Faux Brick Accent Wall

Is the pantry about to be the fanciest room in our house? Absolutely. Are we mad about it? Not one bit. We’re entering Week 3 of our laundry/pantry makeover and are finally seeing some progress with the installation of our faux brick accent wall.

If you’ve read our week one and week two posts, you’ll know that I was trying to convince Alex on a wallpaper accent wall, but he was not having a bar of it. We compromised instead with a faux brick accent wall that runs the whole way across the back wall as a feature wall, and we painted it all white so it’s more subtle against the brass accents and the navy cabinets.

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Reveal |

Budget faux brick accent wall 

We knew we didn’t have the time, money or energy to actually install brick on the entire wall, so we opted instead for a really cool budget hack we learned about on Instagram. We’ve seen these plywood brick panels a few times in other people’s projects, and at roughly $35 for a 4’x8’ sheet, you really can’t go wrong.

It was kind of a haul to get it, though, being that it was only in stock at a Home Depot about 45 minutes away in another state. I called ahead of time to make sure they’d be able to cut it down so I could fit it in our SUV and after assuring me they could, Alex and I left on the drive.

Alex was skeptical about the whole thing, thinking this crazy faux brick product was wallpapered plywood and in painting it white, we’d just have white plywood. I told him to just trust me and wait it out, but once we got there, the spot where it would’ve been was empty.

I went full Karen and asked them to check the back, and they were able to get another pile down from that upper abyss you never really notice in the hardware stores until you do notice it and can’t stop imagining it tumbling down.

Anyway, once it was down, they said it couldn’t be cut on their saws after all and my vision for this room was fading until they must’ve heard the Sarah McLachlan song playing in the soundtrack of my day and decided to give it a go anyway.

Preparing the brick

Once we got the panels home, they were in four strips of 2’x8’ and a very red color. We actually kind of liked that color independently, but worried that with our blue cabinets and white walls it’d look a little too Independence Day, so we painted them all white.

They were absolute sponges and took a coat of primer and then four coats of white paint before they stopped being splotchy. In hindsight I should’ve done two coats of primer to start with, but you live and you learn.

This brick accent wall would also look amazing white-washed or German smeared.

Installing the faux brick panels

I’m so glad we pre-painted them, because having done all that painting on the wall would’ve been much more difficult and time consuming than just having them all flat on the ground.

Even though the panels themselves feel very hardy and thick, we were able to install them with just a nail gun (here’s one we just purchased and LOVE) and 1 ¼ inch nails.

We had to work around one outlet by cutting a hole with the jigsaw, and the final panel took some shaving down because the wall wasn’t plumb – old house problems *gestures at everything*

Once the panels were up, I caulked the seams and gave it the final fourth coat of paint and finally was able to see the vision of the room start to come together.

Other developments this week

Between coats of painting the brick accent wall, we were able to stain the wood we’ll use for shelves across the accent wall.

The wall is exactly 8 feet wide, so we’ll able to use two whole 2×12 pieces. I wanted a stain that wasn’t too yellow or too dark, but I had a hard time really describing the look I wanted. I tested the wood stains we already had, but none of them worked right, and we bought a new color called Weathered Oak, but it didn’t have a big enough of an impact aside from greying down the wood a little bit.

So, I made my own concoction of Weathered Oak and Early American and it was perfect. An Instagram follower messaged and said Weathered American is a mood, and it’s so true, so this color is hereby called Weathered American.

The original plan was floating shelves but we had such a terrible time trying to drill the holes on these beasts of shelves that we last-minute went to the store and got some big, chunky black shelf brackets. They look amazing and we love them so much.

Our washer and dryer also got installed today! We underestimated how much laundry a 7-month-old goes through, so we’ll be very happy to be back to a functioning laundry room from here on out. Also, now those appliances are in place, we know exactly how much room they take up and can start building around it.

Next week’s plan

Another big week. We’ll paint the cabinets and install the countertop. This week is going to be very exciting because once the shelves are up, we’ve got all of our food storage in place in the room and won’t have displaced pantry boxes scattered around the kitchen anymore.

If we get through all that quick enough, we’ll start working on closing off the doorway into the living room and making a plan for the utility closet.

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