coloring unfinished brick with concrete dye.
A quick photo journal of my experience coloring unfinished fireplace bricks with concrete dye!
Before – the bricks had no finish. Just old vintage bricks that were installed in the house when it was built in the late 70’s. I loved the fireplace but couldn’t figure out a way to make it work with my decor. I wanted the same fireplace look (unfinished bricks) – but grey tones instead of orange and brown. I looked into painting, white washing or staining, but there was one other product, concrete dye, that caught my attention. I read that paint particles are the largest, stain a little smaller and dye particles the smallest – so when I happened upon concrete dye, I wondered if it might be an option for just the look I was going for. Worth a try… so I found as similar of a brick as I could to the actual fireplace bricks to test with. As with any paint or stain, always test! First I tested on the individual brick and secondly on some discrete places on the fireplace itself. I retained a backup plan to do something more drastic if the dye didn’t work out (paint, white wash or stain). I still wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out at this point – but since I had a back-up plan(s) I decided to keep going.
preparation.
Don’t rush or skip the prep work! To prepare the bricks I dry brushed (to loosen dirt) and vacuumed them thoroughly, then rinsed them once with hot water and a small amount of mild dish soap, then rinsed them again with just water. After the bricks dried for about a day, I brushed them off and vacuumed again, as well as blue painter’s taped any areas the dye might get on the wall and covered the floor. I did not use an etching product as the can instructions indicate is necessary. I made an assumption the bricks were porous enough without etching. I also did not seal the bricks after application. The can says you must, I did not.
applying the concrete dye.
I used Behr Premium Decorative Concrete Dye. It comes in quite a few colors. I selected three of the grey ones:
- Greystone CD-824
- Industrial Gray CD-825
- Arctic Black CD-828
I didn’t use any real rhyme or reason with the application of the dye – just trial and error. The dye has a water like consistency and needs stirred very frequently, optimally every or every other brick. I found the smaller quart size cans were much easier to work with and just used a regular paint brush for the application. I tried to match lighter bricks with lighter dye and darker with darker, but I did some with a coat of different shades to try to retain as much of the original variation as I could, or at least to mimic natural variations in unfinished brick. Most of the bricks took about four coats.
It certainly wasn’t a quick project, but I am very happy with the final result!
