How To Remove Brick The Easy Way

Have you ever wondered How To Remove Brick? We sure have and the fact is there really isn’t a lot of information out there on the subject. So we’ve compiled this easy step by step guide to show you how to remove brick the easy way!

When your home has the ever controversial brick fireplace, you either love it or you hate it and in our case… We aren’t fans!

Sorry for you brick lovers out there but this orangey red monstrosity just isn’t my thing and after living with it for almost three years we have finally decided to do something about it!

If you have been following for a while you have most likely heard me talk about our double sided fireplace a time or two. If not here is a visual of what our fireplace looks like, it is double sided so you get the exact same view from the dining room. Double the fun right? Wrong!

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Let me just say that we both love, love love having a fireplace. With that being said we do have a few issues with its current state. Luckily we can fix it with minimal effort.

1. The color of the brick is really not appealing, it has a very glossy orangish red tone that pretty much sticks out like a sore thumb inside our entire home.
2.  The mantle goes all the way around the entire fireplace, which is super weird.
3. There is not only this giant fireplace but a huge brick arch over our oven which is visible through the pass-through between the built-ins. That’s a lot of brick yall!!

Honestly what in the world could you possibly put on a mantle, on the side of a fireplace? Even if I did display something there nobody would see it because there is no straight sight line from the living room or kitchen. Basically, we knew it had to go from day one!

Removing it was a whole other can of worms that we, like most people were a little apprehensive to crack open but it was honestly way easier than I thought but such a huge mess, just prepare yourself for that now.

Now before you start taking a sledgehammer to your mantle it is very important to actually know what is going to happen once you start pulling bricks away. So don’t go all incredible hulk just yet.

Important: Most of the time you may have to add in brick as you are taking it away to keep the structure of the fireplace intact. You absolutely do not want to take an entire row of brick out if it is supporting the rest of the fireplace. Our mantle on the side was not so we were able to remove all of it without affecting the structure of the fireplace. Once we get into the front side we will have to support the area then replace the brick. When you take the brick away you will be left with a hole that will need to be rebricked. 

Brick Removal Tool List 

Drill with fully charged battery

Mason Drill Bit

Cold Chisel or Wood Chisel

Hammer

Drop Cloth or Tarp

Large Trash Can

Shop-Vac

Broom & Dust Pan

Safety Glasses

Dust Mask

How To Remove Brick

• Put the drop cloth/tarp down on anything that you are worried may get dusty or be hit by brick chips, those suckers will be flying everywhere.

• To begin use the permanent marker to label the bricks you would like to remove.

• Choose a starting point and place the drill onto the mortar and begin drilling. It doesn’t really matter where.

• Drilling into the mortar will loosen the brick and it will eventually fall off.

• Remove any area where the brick did not come off completely with a cold chisel and hammer.

• Make Sure you have your trash can handy.

• You will most likely have to recharge or switch drill batteries so be prepared for that.

FYI this is one of the messiest jobs we have done to date but it was pretty easy to clean up, although I am still finding pieces of brick in really strange places weeks later. 

Once had the brick removed there was a gaping hole that absolutely could not stay! Our plan is the paint the brick white and add two reclaimed wood mantles to each side.

So instead of completely removing the brick mantle on the fireplace fronts, we decided to make a shell with the reclaimed wood that would fit directly over the existing mantle but that is a different post for a different day. I will be sure to post about our entire process with this process to keep you guys updated. We really could not be more excited about no longer having such an eyesore right in the middle of our main living area.

I have linked the products used in this post below, you can shop each image by simply clicking the product.