apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I once had an interior brick wall that looked great but shed morter dust at a genuinely alarming rate (East Village tenement). We used linseed oil, and it was shiny and slowed the dust deluge.

Why shiny??

I agree that unless there's some odd purpose we're unaware of, this is a bad idea.

I think sealer used for natural stone tiles will work. They have matte and glossy versions, and glossy basically makes slate looks like wet slate.

Test it on an inconspicuous corner first though. Brick is extremely porous. You might have to end up going to clear epoxy for the super wet look. And that'll be tricky.

I don't know why you'd want to do this. Except for glazed or ironspot finishes, brick isn't supposed to be shiny. It just looks wrong.

That opinion aside, they make sealers that create a shiny finish.

polyurethane, glossy

I had shiny bricks in my last apt, and I loved them. I find unfinished exposed brick looks dusty.

olga is correct.

Developer of our first place poly'd one section of brick to see if it would be a good sealer. Looked awful but it did seal and make it shiny.

I don't want to be critical or cast aspersions on your shiny bricks idea, but I would think twice about this project.

I have a shiny brick fireplace and it looks just plain awful. Makes my stomach hurt awful. It makes me so unhappy that I submitted a "Good Question" about it in May to help me convince my landlord to let me paint over it. I hate asking him for anything, but it was that important to me. To each his/her own, I suppose.

On that note, I really do owe the AT crew some pictures of the project. It's still very much a work in progress. In fact we're just getting to it now, since lobbying the landlord was an ordeal and reclaiming the yard from 10 years of trash and overgrowth took precedence this summer.

We couldn't get the LL's buy-in for a BBDW style paint job, but we are allowed to do a very light white wash. The inner ear diagram has a new home in our bedroom and has been replaced with a very large mirror with a white frame. Sam has promised me a mantel beneath that.

home depot's behr paint brand makes a product called interior/exterior wet-look sealer (no. 985 hi-gloss).

i've used it on concrete floors and it works and looks terrific. product information also says it can be used on brick.

it's inexpensive, easy to apply (roll on a coat, let dry for an hour or so, and roll on another.

here's the link:

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100299986

or click here

I had shiny bricks in an apartment and they made me think of raw meat.

unless you are trying to make it look like fake brick, i wouldn't do it.

Maybe wax? I don't know if it would really work but the thought of it seems more natural to me than poly.

Hi Cathy,

We polyurethaned our brick walls and loved the results. It wasn't too glossy but gave the brick a nice warm sheen, much better than the dried brittle look it had before. You can check out photos here http://www.picturemyproperty.com/231MainStreet, from there click on Living Room and Bedroom 1.

P.S. Try the link without the comma at the end:

http://www.picturemyproperty.com/231MainStreet

Why?...please don't do it...

ok... look out. if you poly the interior side of an exterior masonry wall, brick or block that is a true barrier wall then you're going to have trouble. in otherwords, if you have a solid brick wall and on the other side is the great outdoors - don't poly. depending on the climate you're in the poly will eventually delaminate. i've seen it within a single heating season in nyc.

why does this happen?

water vapor that is in the outside air migrates thru the masonry wall from the exterior and 'pushes' the poly off the brick. very ugly... and maybe hard to believe but there's a science to this. the poly creates a vapor barrier and stops the moisture at the inside face of the brick. 'so you say water vapor is stronger than the adhesion of poly to brick?' every freeze a plastic bottle of water? these are strong forces. the same principle applies to the exterior face of brick. LET IT BREATH. all this to say, i don't recommend it... and like someone else posted, the shiny stuff looks like meat. got an interior wall... go low luster to keep the dust level down. ;)

i like the shiny idea! nice contrast between organic and synthetic. love to see how it looks with the sealer...

in fact, is that a picture of your wall? because if it is and the white stuff on the brick is NOT paint then it is salt leaching out of the brick for the same reasons i just posted above... good luck.

throw some d's on that bitch

Maybe there is a difference in the definition of "shiny"?

One thing maybe, and this is only from the advice given me for my brick walls when i exposed them, is to carefully wash the brick with some water with a touch of muriatic acid and rinse with water thoroughly. Get the dust off, take a look and then consider a low-gloss sealer first. Someone correct me if I am wrong but could one not add more "gloss" in another coat to get it more "shiny" so she has more options?

I can look up which gloss I used. It's very interesting, because it was a new product that was recommended for older brick, and only if you take a VERY CLOSE look does it look a little "pearlescent" (so hard to describe) but not glossy.

While doing some research for my home, I came across
How can I get a smooth, shiny surface on my thin brick tiles?. The advice worked for me.