Embellish Your Home with Slurried Brick
If you’re anything like us, you love driving around homes and satisfying your eyes with beautiful houses and stunning exterior walls. Most modern houses use vinyl siding, and others adorn their home exterior with decorative plaster.
But let’s face it . . .
Bricked exterior walls are hard to beat. They give homes that certain charm and historical vibe but with a speck of modern ambiance — something we really love! If you’re planning to install bricks or already have them on your home, you might want to consider applying slurry to embellish your home even more.
What is Slurried Brick?
Slurry is a colored mortar troweled over bricks. It’s basically coating bricks with a mortar wash instead of paint. Some call it mortar washed or sacked, so in this blog post, we will use these three terms simultaneously.
Slurried bricks use the same materials as German Smear brick, but they differ when it comes to application. Both involve coating bricks with mortar wash to white them out. In German Smear, however, you do not apply the mortar wash completely to the bricks. Instead, you leave some bricks exposed to create varying colors and textures, like a white wall with hints of red bricks.
When applied properly, slurry painted brick gives off a look similar to a smooth white stucco. The brick texture will still be highlighted, producing a vintage vibe to your home.
Some confuse whitewashing with slurry coating, but the truth is that they have different processes used in different situations. When you have an existing brick, you are most likely looking at whitewashing. It is the process of covering an entire brick veneer with a thin haze-like coating (usually a combination of water and white paint).
If it’s a new home or project, then you have the option to slurry the brick. And when we talk about slurry, we are talking about coating the entire brick veneer with a thick stucco-ish finish.
Applying slurry to bricks does more than just improving the aesthetics of the exterior. You are basically applying a thick layer of mortar over the brick, which is hard to remove. With it, you will get a tougher and more robust wall.
Slurried Brick: Yay or Nay?
Should you opt for a slurried brick? Or should you just stay with the traditional brick and mortar?
To help you decide, let’s paint its pros and cons.
Pros
Bricks, in general, are more robust. They can fortify your house’s structural design while giving off a fusion of modern and vintage vibes. If you get them mortared wash, you get a more delicate, more distinct texture. And with it, you get a beautiful finish for your house.
Unlike traditional paint, the element that beams the white look is the mortar itself. The difference though is that conventional paint costs lower than to get your bricks mortar washed (more of this in a bit).
In a nutshell, mortar washed bricks can make your house more sturdy and aesthetically pleasing, especially compared to traditional paint and other exterior wall designs.
Cons
Yet, mortar washed walls also do come with some downsides. For one, the cost is slightly higher compared to when you choose the traditional brickwork.
How Much Does It Cost to Slurry Brick?
Before deciding whether to go for this type of brick finish, it’s essential to look for information about how much it costs. As hinted above, sacked bricks cost just a bit more expensive.
The cost depends on several factors, including location and the size of your house to be covered. Find masonry companies near you and ask for quotations. They are more than happy to accommodate your request.
Alternatively, you might want to look for people who specialize in washing bricks. They must be able to provide you with some idea of how much it costs. It’s also best to ask for their opinion regarding what finish or wash best fits your house. Should you go for German Smear or Sacked Bricks, they can give you helpful advice.
Sacked Bricks Cost
Applying sacked bricks to your house typically ranges from $12,000 to $25,000. But again, it depends on the size of the bricks to be covered.
Whitewash Cost
Whitewash, on the other hand, costs about $110 to $250 per square foot, according to HomeAdvisor. Remember, when calculating the cost, you have to put in mind other essential factors, such as labor, the pre-construction costs (power washing, supplies, etc.), and brick painting equipment.
Paint Cost
If you want to paint your bricks, the cost can range from $3,000 to $10,000 for a 250-square-foot house. That makes the average cost of paint per square foot of about $1.40 to $4.20.
Clearly, sacked bricks really do cost more, but they are longlasting, which means you are actually saving money in the long run. On the other hand, paint is cheaper, but you might have to repaint your home more frequently. We all know that paint deteriorates faster.
Final Takeaway
If you love to up the look of your house, then we totally vouch for sacked bricks. Unlike paint, sacked bricks are more longlasting. They can also reinforce your house, making it more sturdy and robust. Look for companies or professionals that specialize in finishing brickworks.
The cost could be high, but if you love to improve your house–both in structure and aesthetics–this shouldn’t be much of a problem.
