Create a Faux Brick Accent Wall with Paint in 4 Easy Steps

Teresa Odland

Faux Brick Wall Supplies

• Interior paint (base color)
• Interior paint (3 to 5 contrasting brick colors)
• Painter’s tape
• Plastic quilting template (or household sponges)
• Utility or X-acto knife
• Hard-bristle paintbrush
• Disposable plate or scrap of heavy cardboard
• Level

Here’s a great paint can hack to use when you need to store leftover paint.

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Faux Brick Wall Painting Step 1. Base Color

Paint your wall with the base color. This color will become the “mortar” of your accent wall, so generally you will want to choose a light to medium gray or beige. If the existing paint is close enough you can skip this step, or follow these tips to paint a room fast.

Teresa Odland

Faux Brick Wall Painting Step 2. Create Your Stencil

Using a plastic quilters template sheet, sketch out your brick pattern, and cut out each “brick.” For a uniform look, cut straight rows of the same-sized bricks. For a more rustic look, stagger the size of bricks, round some corners and rotate a few bricks so they aren’t perfectly straight.

Editor’s Tip: Even if you don’t consider yourself artistic, we’ll show you how to use stencils to create unique works of art using only a paintbrush and a tape measure. With these simple DIY wall stencil patterns you’ll be able to create everything from a simple stenciled border to more complex patterns that will add a dramatic flourish to any room in your house.

Teresa Odland

Faux Brick Wall Painting Step 3. Create Your Paint Palette

This is a great opportunity to get rid of those leftover house paints and color samples. Choose three to five contrasting colors, some lighter, some darker, in the desired color scheme. For a more traditional brick look, choose reds, rusts, browns and beiges. Or for a modern whitewashed style, choose creams and grays.

Here are 15 Other Projects Made with Paint Samples.

Teresa Odland

Faux Brick Wall Painting Step 4. Paint Your Accent Wall

Working one section at a time, use painter’s tape to secure the stencil to the wall. Dab your brush into the color palette, grabbing a variety of the colors—don’t worry if they mix or get messy, this will actually make the “bricks” look more authentic. Using the same dabbing technique, fill in your stencil on the wall. Continue along the wall, moving the stencil in a grid and adding more paint to your palette as needed to keep a range of color depth.

Is brick not your style? Consider one of these 15 DIY accent walls.

Shutterstock/Potapenko Ivan

Faux Brick Wall Painting Alternate Method: Sponge Brick

If you want, you can skip the template and use a few household sponges cut to size as brick “stamps.” Dab the sponge on the paint palette, catching a little of each color, and “stamp” out the bricks onto the wall moving horizontally, leaving “mortar” space between each brick. Check for even rows with a level.

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