Brick Headboard + Side tables
One of the distinctive architectural elements of the DUMBO neighborhood in Brooklyn is the Red Brick industrial buildings. In fact our building has a brick facade that surrounds the courtyard or second floor’s communal patio and gives the industrial vibe that the building had when it was used as a furniture warehouse.
DUMBO, Brooklyn, NY
Brick Facade, view from our apartment’s balcony
On the other hand, Brick has always been the most important material in Iranian architecture and I have always been amazed with certain constructions, usually ones that date further back, that contain incredible geometrical treasures and amazing ornate brick works. I believe we could learn a lot from the beauty of Iran’s structural geometry, where skin and structure are (almost always) one and the same.
Therefore I decided to have a brick element in our home and since the bedroom’s white headboard looked unfinished, and was easily getting water stains and collecting dust, I decided that it would be the perfect spot for creating an accent brick wall or to be more accurate, half wall.
To save space and maintain the realistic look and feel of the brick, I decided to use Brick veneers, which are essentially bricks that are cut to thinner pieces so they can cover a surface but would be lighter and easier to install. With brick veneer, the structural support comes from the concrete, steel, or wood that makes up the backup wall, and the brick is on the exterior for aesthetic purposes only. We watched various youtube videos which showed how simple (!) the process of installing brick veneers are and decided to DIY the project -a decision that we regretted a little later on.
During the project we had a couple of lucky accidents. First the corner pieces were the exact size as our built-in headboard. Secondly, Although a few bricks in each box came broken, we used all the pieces and at the end ONLY ONE unused brick was left!
The whole process took about 4 days and we had to buy all the supplies from mortar to wet tile saw for cutting the pieces. The first 2 days was for attaching all the brick veneers to the wall using mortar. The challenge for us when sticking the bricks to the wall was that they would slip of the wall as our mortar was not the right consistency and when we made it ticker, it would dry out too quickly. It took a long time and using plenty of nails under each brick until we finally figured out how much mortar and with wheat consistency we should make. My husband and I were lucky that one of our friends came to help us the first day, otherwise it would have threatened our relationship lol .
While the first part of the process was hard, we had no idea how much harder the grouting process is going to be. Also I had bought a grout that is used for tile because of its bone color. We did a little bit of the work (image below) and then realized it would take us ages to finish it and the amount of mess it created and patience it required, made it not worth our time and effort. So we hired someone to come and finish the work and he did the whole wall in 4 hours!
