Faux Chimney Brick Wall Mounted Pot Rack

6 Materials
$200
10 Hours
Medium

Hi Liz here from the DIY & decorating blog SimpleDecoratingTips.com. ( here's the link for this original post on the site with more info) I am going to show you the pot rack in our 100 year old house today! This was a DIY project that we accomplished with minimal tools and skills. Here’s what we did…

First…going back to when we first bought this old house...

then we gutted the kitchen…all except the wall in the left of this picture with the phone outlet on the country style wallpaper. That wall only needed the beadboard and wallpaper removed, but the plaster below was still firmly attached to the wall.Although I don’t have ‘during’ pictures, it’s pretty easy to explain.For this DIY project, I used this exact thin brick material purchased online: (free delivery too!!) For the exact potrack, check out the comments below with a link for it.

It is a real brick, just thin and mounted to a mesh backing like how they do with tile mosaics.

This is really cool stuff! Because it’s so thin, you can mount in on plaster or sheetrock or wood or masonry block… basically anything without any prep work need at all. And it can be indoors or exterior. And because it’s mounted on the mesh, the installation is so fast.The directions for it say you can use standard tile mortar to install or construction glue. We opted for the construction glue in a caulk gun tube.But before I get a head of myself, before we, (my son and I worked on this project together) applied the the brick, we determined where on the wall the brick was going to start and stop. There were a few obstacles…There is a baseboard radiator heater below, and light switches to the left, and a corner on the right. So we opted to go from the baseboard heater up to the drop ceiling above for the height.

Anyway, the finished width of the brick needed to accommodate these without looking crowded and without looking too spaced out. Once that was determined, we actually started by mounting the wood vertical borders.

First we had an old weathered beam that my carpenter cut into 2 pieces to frame the brick on each side. This would give it an old look and finish the edges of the brick nicely. So applying a thick squiggle line of construction glue caulk to the backs of the 2 boards, and nailing it on, to hold until the caulk dried, we had our tall strip of wall space for the brick defined.Then it was simply just a matter of squeezing that construction glue out onto the brick mesh back and setting it on the wall, firmly wiggling it back and forth a few times to get it to get a good grip of the wall. For the most part it stayed where it was supposed to, but a couple pieces did want to slightly slip down the wall a little. Once the glue set up and got stiffer that took care of that.For the mortar in between the brick, I had my carpenter, who also has done a lot of tile work, do it. I know I could have, but it was much easier and less messy to just have him do it.

Remember that ‘Z-brick’ from the 70’s (I know, I’m dating myself) but a lot of people used that stuff in their homes, trying to get that exposed brick look… the biggest failure with that is that they used a black tar looking mortar… I don’t know why they decided that was the way to go, but it was horrid looking. So to make my exposed brick realistic looking I used a natural colored sanded grout. It looks just like real brick mortar.

I love having a pot rack in my kitchen… I just can’t imagine sacrificing that much cupboard space to store all these pots and pans. And some of these pans are so large and would be difficult to get to inside a cabinet, but here I can just grab what I need. This wall mounted, exposed brick, pot rack was a fairly easy DIY project, given that my son helped a lot and my carpenter did the grout. And I know, that some of you are thinking about the dust. For me, it hasn’t been an issue at all. There isn’t noticeable dust on the pans, but just to be sure, when I grab whichever pot I’m going to cook with, I give it a quick rinse in the sink. If you want any input from me, I’d love to help you out, so feel free to comment or email me with your thoughts, questions, or just to share your ideas! For more information on this project, hop on over to SimpleDecoratingTips.com (link at top of this post).

Resources for this project:
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Liz at Simple Decorating Tips
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  • Sara M Trout Sara M Trout on Sep 22, 2018

    Love the brick, and it seems easy to do, but, how did you make those beautiful pot racks and wear did you get those “s” hooks? These racks are fantastic in their simplicity!

  • Nicole Reed Nicole Reed on Sep 28, 2018

    Can you use this thin brick for floors?

  • Jenny Gale Martinez Jenny Gale Martinez on Sep 28, 2018

    I didn’t see where the pot rack came from. Where can I get them or did you carpenter make them?

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