German Smear Accent Wall

by Karen W

4 Materials

Over Christmas break we re-did my 18 year old son's room to make it more grown up instead of stuck between age 12 and 16. New wall paint, new curtains, and eventually new bedding, a cool accent wall using a technique called German Smear,and a few black accents made his room a sanctuary and a place he can be proud of.

german smear accent wall, home decor, wall decor

The accent wall was done last. We went to Lowe's and purchased 3 faux brick panels. His wall is 10 ft. long and 3 panels only had to be trimmed long ways slightly. They were too tall so they had to be trimmed length-wise.

We used wood putty to fill in the cracks between each panel. Then we opened a big can of mortar and used a trough to slop on mortar and smear it over the panels. You can cover your brick a little or a lot. It's hard to mess this process up. We did it thin in some area and thicker in others.

I used a damp sponge and wiped clean some areas of brick to let it show through. In the end I wanted a wall that looked old and appeared to be bricked and mortared over where time had caused some of the mortar to chip off. I loved the textures and they catch the light when he has his nightstand light on.

Lowe's sells 2 colors of faux brick panels. The traditional red brick with black grout is one choice but we chose the more peachy and gray brick since the rest of the walls were going to be painted gray (painted with Olympics' "spring frost." We added a repurposed piece of heavy crown molding near the ceiling to hide the edges and simple inexpensive pre-painted corner molding for the corners. The trim on the base board covered the edges near the floor. We were thrilled with the end result and so was my son. I used black accents in the room and eventually his old burgundy bedding will be replaced with a soft minky fabric gray colored set with Sherpa underneath.