Benefits of Faux Painted Masonry
Over the past few weeks, instead of looking at the typical types of historical brick masonry deterioration and restoration that we often see here in Capitol Hill which drastically need repointing and refurbishment, we’ve been looking at some very visually interesting examples of painted brick and masonry.
In some cases, the painted brick looks very visually interesting and is clearly artwork, in other cases it makes no sense at all. For example, and one of the cases where it doesn’t seem to make sense to us, someone went and painted every one of the bricks and every area of mortar joints to make it just look like brick and mortar, right on top of the real brick and mortar. In another particular case that we looked at this past week, somebody created an elaborate painting, true artwork over the face of a otherwise monolithic and mundane aesthetic of a masonry building.
The picture below is a different angle of the same building we looked at last week, here you can see, someone with real artistic skills serious amount of time and effort to make this otherwise simple looking masonry building look like a giant painted mural but unlike some painted murals which are flashy and catching, here they made the building look just like a building, albeit a more elaborate building, still just a building.
They’ve taken so much time to paint this and design the illustration well, they’ve even put significant detail into designing somewhat mundane or basic types of building components like the handrails and guardrails and the details of those items as they cast a shadow on to the building facade.
The next building that we’re looking at today though is just as interesting, but much more like the typical mundane and basic brick facade. The building facade isn’t made of brick though. And the picture below, it looks very much like a typical historic red brick wall. Often we need to restore and or repoint these historic walls, so there’s nothing particularly unique about this aesthetic. When you look closer though, you can see it’s not even real. It’s actually just a stucco faced historic masonry wall with brick painted on top of the stucco.
The next picture below looks very close at this facade and here, you can see that there is no differentiation in the texture between the brick and the mortar. Any real brick and mortar would have a discernible difference when you look at it at this level of detail. Generally, mortar joints are recessed, at least to a degree. In some cases, and particularly with the historic masonry here in Washington DC, at common brick joints built over 100 years ago. Unlike contemporary or modern masonry, those joints will have a flush strike, in other words they were told to be relatively flush or in the same plane as the brick itself.
The contemporary bricks though often will have a concave or bucket handle type of strike which means that there is a slight recess in the brick joint. Even though the historic bricks often had a flush joint, they were built so long ago that today that flush joint has receded by natural deterioration.
Bricks themselves, particularly historic contexts were kilned fired to a semi vitreous type of state which is hardened and able to resist many types of typical permeation. The bricks will actually last much longer than the mortar, in most cases, and that’s one of the main reasons that it’s so important to repoint historic mortar joints, to remove the deteriorated old mortar even though that the brick itself in most cases is still in good shape.
The next picture below shows another view of that same brick wall but this particular angle happens to be a little bit more direct, almost a 90° to the face of the facade.
One of the biggest giveaways between not just bricks and mortar, but other types of construction as well, to discern between real and fake, is to take a close look at the corners. In many cases, particularly with masonry, but also in the case of wood veneers made to look real, when you look at the corner, you can see the grain won’t match very well in most types of fake wood. Here as well with this fake brick, really just painted on top of a stucco wall, you can see that the area around the corner has not been treated the same way. It’s a quick giveaway that the painted surface is not actual real brick.
And although it’s not real at all, it really does almost fool the eye. It’s a well executed forgery.
If you take a step back and look at the entirety of the wall, especially from more than a few feet away, it just feels like you’re standing next to a regular red brick wall.
Another detail is really interesting about this painting work is that it’s done over a very large area, on a very large wall.
We can Help
Our company focuses on historic restoration more than modern building upkeep, maintenance, and construction, but our company understands both types of construction very well and a full picture well-rounded approach is needed in any niche in the construction industry. Although we focus on historic restoration, repointing, tuckpointing and historic brick repair, our company also has technical knowledge and competencies in the areas of modern and contemporary construction as well as we become one of the leaders in that area of the market today. Understanding both historic and modern or contemporary construction is useful because both aspects help understand the challenges and potential solutions for challenges in building science and construction.
We can help with a variety of historic masonry restoration needs and upkeep, from modest tuckpointing and or repointing to complicated and extensive historic masonry restoration. Infinity Design Solutions is a historic restoration specialist contractor specializing in both historic masonry restoration such as tuckpointing our repointing, and brick repair. If you have questions about the architectural details or facade of your historic building in Washington DC, reach out and say hello and if we can help we’ll be glad to assist you. You can email us or call us on the telephone at the following link: contact us here.
