Faking It

[vicky whitworth]

Ok, I'm going to be brave on this one and risk exposing myself as a phoney. I have a dilemma. At one end of our rubble stone cottage we have inherited a 1980s brick built extension in what, I believe, is commonly termed public convenience style ie: it looks like a Corporation toilet. There is nothing attractive about it and in a dream world we'd pull it down and start again. But since we don't have the cash for that we are going to have it roughcast in lime and then limewash the whole cottage (as the old parts were orginally). Hopefully it will then blend in a little more.

My dilemma relates to what's inside. In the small sitting room is an inglenook fireplace - a 1980s inglenook fireplace, plain plastered inside with a railway sleeper as the beam. We replaced the railway sleeper with an oak beam and painted the inside of the fireplace with a burnt orange coloured claypaint. It looks better. But now we are thinking about having an inner skin of brick built against the plaster ie: inside the inglenook all round and leaving the brick exposed, and tied in and pointed in lime. We think it will, firstly, improve the proportions by making the opening slightly smaller, and secondly look better than the modern plaster finish. I can picture it in my head but of course it will be entirely fake.

We don't plan on moving from this cottage so we want something we like.
What would you do? No original fabric involved at all (unless you count original 1980s), cottage not listed. We have a woodburner in the inglenook. It's only redeeming feature is that the inglenook has a nice, flagstone hearth which we would keep.

 

[JoceAndChris]

I think you should do just as you like in your extension. I can't comment on what it would look like aesthetically, not having seen it, but as it's all fake anyway why not make it a bit more fake? It sounds like a good idea to reduce the size of the opening if it's too dominant.

 

[MdB]

First, do what ever you like. It is your house and there is no historical fabric involved.

Second, I wouldn't call what you are planning a fake. Call it a copy if you want, but it is basically a fireplace with a brick back. There is nothing wrong with that.

Third, make a careful brick selection. In my my inexpert view, modern style large bricks will likely look wrong.

 

[vicky whitworth]

Thank you Jose. I suppose that's the way I feel about it. Forgot to say we are only contemplating this now as large chunks of the plaster skim have started to fall off and we have to do something.

 

[Penners]

First, do what ever you like. It is your house and there is no historical fabric involved.

My sentiments entirely.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Rather to my dismay, my parents have recently covered over their exposed brick "rustic effect" chimney breast in their 1972 house. For once, it was an authentic original feature (and one I grew up with), but what makes it worse is that they haven't done the same to the matching section of wall on the opposite side of the room :roll: .

 

[Jill]

Go for it Vicky if that is what you want, we have done something similar with our fire, but the skin of brick has gone fully across the wall and not just in the fireplace opening (guess we can be phoneys together if you do it) The reason for us doing it mainly was that the wall was only a single brick and had no foundations. We used old bricks from elsewhere in the house. We like it and that is all that matters.

 

[yamin]

Entirely agree with the others. If there is no 'original' to either preserve or restore then you must do what suits you. In your case it sounds like a nice treatment, but if you wanted a buttoned bar in deep red vinyl then go for it (no illustration of my snobbery there is there?!!) - you are destroying nothing, and since you have to live with it, its best if you can love it!

 

[vicky whitworth]

Thank you for your support. That's it, I'm going to do it. Could any one give me advice on brick style, size? We're not in a brick area so nothing really to copy round here, but the cottage is 18th century. We have an excellent reclamation place locally that does masses of bricks so we should be able to find something nice.
Thank you for the advice.

 

[yamin]

We did this in a room we have where the fireplace had been surrounded by crazy paving, on the wall!! We just went for a mooch around the reclamation site and picked bricks that took our fancy colour and style wise, but also that had enough undamaged/cleanish ones available. I think purely a matter of taste, and maybe not crumbly!

 

[biffvernon]

I've used a lot of 18th century bricks - not to fake anything but just because they look nice and re-using them doesn't involve burning lots of carbon like making new bricks. Round my end on England 18th century means handmade and rather thinner than the machine made bricks that were introduced in the early 19th century. It's easy to tell the difference at a glance. Not so sure about every part on the land but the older bricks are almost always thinner.

Expect to pay more than for new bricks, or get lucky and find some for free. Some people just have heaps of them getting in the way but that's getting quite rare these days.

 

[Penners]

picked bricks that took our fancy colour and style

yamin's got the idea. Just choose what you want. As Biff suggests, hunt around reclamation yards and find some that you like.

 

[OddJob]

Thank you for your support. That's it, I'm going to do it. Could any one give me advice on brick style, size? We're not in a brick area so nothing really to copy round here, but the cottage is 18th century. We have an excellent reclamation place locally that does masses of bricks so we should be able to find something nice.
Thank you for the advice.

As a bricklayer for 32 years and working solely in lime mortar for 15 years I've done quite a few inglenooks(repairs and rebuild)and have "faked" it a few times by building a new skin.
The bricks you want I commonly call "Tudors".
The size would be earlier than your cottage but they would be around 2"-2 1/4" as opposed to later 2 1/2"-2 3/4" brick thickness.
Length would be around 9"-9 1/2",width 4"-4 1/2".
Tudor bricks are increasingly and quite rightly hard to find for the simple reason that there are so few buildings left of that period to reclaim from and destroy.
Most reclaimed bricks you get now,especially the thinner "Tudor" bricks are imported by the architectural salvage/reclamation yards from France,that's the way it works where I am in Kent and Sussex.
They also tend to be not only of inferior quality and overfired but shorter in length.
Several brickyards in the UK manufacture the type of brick you need and make them to look like old bricks but they're not all good.
The traditional art of brickmaking is all but lost and modern bricks are rubbish,wrong clay,too much sand and not fired properly.
I'm not a fan of reclaimed bricks for the simple reason it encourages the demolition of old buildings for profit,I don't see it quite in the way of recycling some do.
But to be honest I can't find better bricks than old bricks so if you find some that suit your fireplace use them,I do :wink:
Andy

 

[robgil]

can you recommend anyone who makes bricks Andy? one half of my inglenook has been replaced with some rather lovely modern orange engineering bricks , mine are 10'' x 2'' x 4 1/4'' although some are as wide as 5''. ive seen those french bricks in recce yards but id rather put new ones in and at least make it look like an honest repair rather than a confusing one.

ive also got a new extension grafted onto the side of my 16c cottage, flat roof , plastic windows , cheap ledge and brace doors and an un-plastered plasterboard ceiling but judging by the way the walls are plastered its probably best left as plasterboard.
i plan to use it as a third bedroom with on-suite and i will try and make it blend in as much as possible with the old house , oak lintels etc etc but it is what it is , a crap extension built from a centrefold article in a crap DIY magazine by someone who wanted to 'have a go'. i too would love to pull my extension down and put up a nice timber framed one instead but right now ive got enough on my plate, one day though.

 

[OddJob]

I'm not sure I'm allowed to recommend anyone and I'm not here to sell me or anyone else but seeing as it's Easter I've had good experiences from Lambs :wink:
I've had bad experiences with some of their bricks for gauged work though,rubbers with flint in that blows the face and underfired,the main brickyard is in Faversham and they can make any brick you like but for small orders it will cost a fortune.
Making the one off mould is expensive and then you have to wait until they fire the kilns again,same as Sussex Bricks.
I've not used either for ages,I usually manage to find bricks I need somewhere,often from old stock.
I often cut bricks down to fit.
One I won't use is York Bricks,they screwed an order of bricks for Dering windows(ordered against my advice by the "alleged" architect at the time because they were cheaper)
I had to cut all the arches again.
York bricks are probably fine for that area but not for mine.
I can't really recommend anyone not knowing your location but I've mentioned the only ones I know that make decent hand made bricks in my manor.
What I would recommend is you visit a local brickmaker if you have one(there are a few left)and see how they do it and tell them what you need.
The good ones are extremely accommodating.
More than once the bricks I've needed are left over from old orders and they're happy to get rid of a few to clear a space,they're always round the back somewhere and you have to slip someone a drink.
Blind eyes are often turned when you only need a few bricks :wink:

 

[Penners]

can you recommend anyone who makes bricks Andy?

Bulmer Brick & Tile, in Bulmer, near Sudbury, Suffolk.

http://www.brickcutters.com/

Don't be put off by the fact that their website concentrates on their brick cutting service. They also make ordinary bespoke bricks. Excellent products - I've bought from them myself.

 

[robgil]

cheers guys , i think you gave me the heads up before Penners , they quoted me 1.80 a brick and because its a funny size there would be quite a long wait for them.
how good was the match to your original bricks?

 

[OddJob]

I've used Bulmers once about 10 years ago when I was brickwork foreman on the Yonsea Farm project.
In dismantling(I should say demolition as that's how it was carried out by people who didn't understand the need to dismantle carefully and label)thousands of bricks were lost :evil:
Including all the original half bats used in the 18" header bond twin roundel oast,they used them to create a road for the lorries :roll:
When I came to rebuild the skewback arches using photographic records we found the original key bricks were around 10" long,the only ones we could source were from Bulmers(about 11",ideal as I could cut them to fit)very good they were too but ridiculously expensive,they were what they then sold as rubbers but rubbers they certainly were not!
Far too hard for traditional rubbing but the clay was good,they were pretty good bricks but too thick for what you need even if the length is right.
One of these days,and I've been thinking about this for years,I'll find a friendly farmer with a little corner somewhere where I can build a clamp and make a few bricks 8)
Just something I need to do.
After all that's how the bricklayers used to do it in the old days.
Too many lost skills.
Andy

 

[Penners]

how good was the match to your original bricks?

Very good, although of course a brand new brick will always take some time to weather down to a perfect match with the old.

If you try to create a new brick that is immediately a perfect match to an old brick, then in a few years' time it will have weathered to the point where it looks quite different from the old brick.